


The Chains We Can't See

by OnyxDrake9



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: City Elves, Elves, F/F, Rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:14:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 29,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24593626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxDrake9/pseuds/OnyxDrake9
Summary: Ria thinks she is content in Denerim, working in some shemlen tavern, but is she lying to herself? Her people are leaving the city in droves, off to join some nebulous elven rebellion, and tensions between elves and humans are growing by the day. Will she be able to remain neutral or will a new love interest spell her undoing?
Comments: 10
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

I found Denil at the well out back. He was sluicing himself off from the bucket—not that this did any good, because he was begrimed with the kind of dirt you can only pick up from being dragged through Denerim’s gutters. Not only that, but the gash opened above his left eye stained him scarlet. The blood ran freely despite how much water he splashed and made him look like a ghoul.

Alarmed, I took the bucket from him as he tried to lower it. “What happened to you?”

“Damned shems,” he spat as he wrung out his hair.

I winced when I saw that the mess of his left ear. Someone had ripped out the three silver rings that had graced the cartilage near the tip. It would heal but the graceful point of his ear would never quite look right again. Like a tomcat that’d been caught in a brawl.

“Just sit,” I told him then glanced behind me, in case Essie or, worse, Egan, were to stick their noses out and see us loitering. “Speak to me.”

While I drew more water then tried as best I could to help clean him up—and ruin a perfectly good dishcloth in the process—Denil told me about the half dozen human youths who’d waylaid him on his way to the Nag’s Shoe.

“They started the usual way,” he said. “Knife-ear. Rabbit. But then I pushed back.”

“Stupid,” I said. “You know better than that.”

He half-nodded then hissed when I dabbed at the abrasion on his cheek.

“You shoulda just gone on. Not let them get you all riled up further.”

“I’m tired of it, Ri,” he said with a drawn-out sigh.

“We all are, but you know it does no good.”

“My cuz was of that mind before he went.”

“And look what good that did him,” I shot back. “You still don’t know whether he’s alive or has his head stuck on a pike at some crossroads somewhere.”

“That’s not the point,” Denil said. “He said we need to get some backbone.”

“Until the shems kick it out of us. There’re more of them, they’re better armed.”

He sighed. “We’re better than this, and you know it.”

“Aye, but there are dishes to be washed and ale to be served,” I told him. “And I have rent to foot by month end, so it’s not going to pay me to think different and give voice to it where the shems can hear.”

“Suliya and her fam went this morning,” he said. “Their place is all shuttered up and no warning that they’re going. That’s five families this week just upped and left. Word has it they’ve gone to the Brecilian forest to join the rebellion.”

“And where’s that gonna get them come winter?” I retorted. “It’s all stuff and nonsense. They can’t live off of pinecones and fresh air. And who’s to say the Dalish are gonna take kindly to a bunch of city folk starving on their doorstep, getting eaten by wolves and worse?”

“We could go so you can find your da,” he added, turning so he could catch my eye.

“You leave my da out of it. ’Sides, he won’t want me to remind him of my ma. And I’m not about to go tramp about in the woods with my rustic kin who look down on me for my city ways. I’m not getting rained on. I _like_ my creature comforts.” I huffed then straightened Denil’s collar. “There you look halfways decent. Egan’s still gonna hit the roof when he sees you, but I reckon you’ll be able to do the washing up without bleeding over the clean crockery.”

“Wench,” he said with a wink then pecked me on the cheek before I could duck out of the way.

I was fast enough with that grotty dishcloth that I could still snap him one on his backside.

Though things were due to heat up at work, what with happy hour soon to start, I couldn’t help but tarry a while before plunging in to work. The Nag’s Shoe shared a back courtyard with three other establishments, and I rested for a bit against a stack of crates containing old bottles. Late swallows still twittered in the eaves near their mud-daubed nests, and I couldn’t help the stir of unease glancing up at the overcast sky that threatened rain.

My people leaving, like the birds were wont to, once autumn brushed the forest with her mantle of gold. An odd restlessness had me in its grip. Life here in Denerim wasn’t too bad, or was it? Granted, I was privileged enough not to have to live in the alienage like Denil and the others. I had work at a tavern that paid well, where the owner didn’t suffer customers pestering the staff. I had friends of many races—elven, human and dwarven. Life wasn’t bad. Things were better now since one of our own stood up against that Corypheus guy, and got man, elf and dwarf to become allies. The stuff of storybooks. None of it seemed real here, in some low-ceilinged Denerim tavern.

And yet…

It was these ugly incidents that kept cropping up—Denil the latest—that I could no longer shrug off. I could think of a dozen times or more when I could’ve upped and gone looking for my da, get away from this all, but I kinda figured he was out of our lives by the time he stopped visiting us by my twelfth birthday. All I had of him was the small halla horn carving of a bear, that I kept on a thong around my neck. That was it. Apart from his high cheekbones and strawberry blond hair, my ma said. She sometimes got sad when she looked at me, and we’d stopped talking about da ages ago.

Knowing his ways, he probably got married to one of his own by now. Ma and da were very young when I came along. One foot in the forest, the other on cobblestones, said my da of me the last time I saw him. Leastways, my parents had been too young for their love to last. And Ma was happy now with Master Jen, who’d given her the attic rooms above his store. They had come to an accord, even if I sometimes caught Ma staring absently out of the dormer windows that faced south. But Master Jen would look after her, and that was enough for me. Even if he wouldn’t be seen in public with her gracing her arm. And he was always kind enough to me, and made sure that I had new dresses, and that I got a good job here at the Nag’s Shoe with Egan.

Not all humans were like the filth who beat up on Denil.

And things weren’t all bad here in Denerim, not to warrant the city elves departing in their droves. For what? King Alistair had the walls around the alienage torn down. Not that it helped much in the long run.

Just then Essie bustled out, her colour high. She puffed out her lips. “The bloody bastard!”

For a moment I thought she meant Denil, and I sighed.

“Literally the bastard!” she said as she wiped her brow.

“Lord Dugan’s son again?” My heart sank. As if Denil’s little misadventure on the road to work weren’t bad enough. Now we had an arl’s son throwing his weight around. I’d have to watch my arse. Literally.

“And his usual gang.”

“Have you told Egan?” I asked, while I straightened my apron and tucked my hair behind my ears. Annoyingly, I had a smudge of Denil’s blood on my sleeve, and I smudged at it with a bit of saliva. “Arl’s bastard get or not, he’s got no right to try be all noble like when his mam’s no better than a chambermaid.”

“Egan’s gone down to see about a fresh keg because… Denil.” She arched her brows theatrically then tucked a stray brown curl behind her round shell ear with its little pearl earrings. “Again? Has he got a target painted on his back or something? I worry about him.”

“It’s not just him.”

“Aye.”

So, we got to work, and it was as if Denil’s earlier encounter had somehow laid a blanket of unease on me and Essie. Denil kept to the back, no doubt content to busy himself with the washing up. His face would be bruising up something awful, in any case. But the mood in the tavern was ugly, to say the least, and Eric and his friends had wandering hands and eyes. With our boss absent, they went as far as making ugly propositions accompanied by the kind of lip-smacking noises that made me think of pigs at their swill.

Ordinarily this might not concern me so much, but with everything happening in the city the past while, I struggled to keep a scowl from my face or curb the sharpness of my tongue.

In our line of work, we picked up much gossip, and this evening’s talk was rife with the unrest in the city. A lodging house over at the east end had burnt down, and someone shared a story about his cousin who’d run into a party of mean elves who’d turned his pockets inside out and had given him a few solid punches to the gut.

The shem probably had it coming, I reckoned, what with all the stirrings, but it was still no good, because these men were talking openly about retaliation. Did they realise I was wiping down a table right next to them? Um, hello, knife-ear bitch, right? And if one bunch pushed, and another shoved back, it could only ever turn into an ugly slugging match. Ugh.

Someone was also going around daubing weird glyphs in red paint on walls all over the city. I’d yet to see any of these, but it unsettled me further. Some said it was a Red Jenny who was doing it, some sort of prank, but then the Jennies had been here for years and what would make them start painting walls now? It didn’t add up.

Another said he’d heard it was some blond elven bitch with a foul mouth and badly trimmed bangs. He’d seen her, he swore blind. She’d put an arrow through some bann’s second cousin who’d done nothing wrong, he said. Bleeding Jennies.

But the stories went around and around like drunk bees, and as the ale flowed, the talk got darker and uglier, with more and more fingers pointed at elves, until even Essie suggested to me quietly that maybe I go help Denil in the back for a while until most folks went home for supper. Egan had returned by then by then and even he thought me and Denil hiding in the kitchens wasn’t a bad idea.

“This can’t go on anymore,” Denil said to me while we were taking the garbage out back.

I sighed. “What can’t go on?” We’d been bantering about which of his friends would make me a good lover, and his sudden seriousness brought me up short.”

“This whole thing.” He gestured at his swollen face. “They bloody well chipped one of my teeth and I ain’t got no money to fix it. Look!” He shoved his face near mind and pointed at his open mouth.

“Eww, gross.” I turned away and shoved at him gently. “Tooth violence. You know I don’t do tooth violence, you bleeding lummock.”

This brought a cackle out of him, so I suppose things between us were mended. For now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ria crosses paths with a most unsuitable woman, and elven troubles in Denerim grow more convoluted.

I’ll never forget the morning I met Iova. Some moments are etched forever in your mind, and this was one of those that shone so that my awareness encapsulated it the way a master artist will frame a memory so that it can be examined again later, at one’s leisure. Essie and I had overslept. Whether it was that we’d simply not heard the noon bells or that we’d been overtired from the night before, I couldn’t tell. We were due for the afternoon-to-night shift, and we had precious little time to scrape our bony arses out of our lodgings and into reasonably clean dresses that were presentable enough for Egan’s clientele.

Granted, the interior of the tavern was dim, so no one would notice our drab dresses had a few extra beer spills on them from the night before. I know, I know. Yuck. Ick. Gross. But the washerwoman’s expensive and I couldn’t be arsed to wash my clothes myself.

Besides, there’s little a few dabs of cheap perfume can’t mask when you’re working in an environment already brimming with bad breath and body odour.

The night before our landlady, Marianne, had said there was a new lodger, an elven woman named Iova, in the attic room across from ours, and please can we be a little quiet as the lady’d exhausted herself moving all her trunks upstairs—apparently, she was fresh out from Kirkwall or some such. Bad sea voyage, blah blah blah and she'd paid good silver, so please can we be mindful. Which was kinda funny, 'cos usuallyt Marianne had precious little good to say about elves. So, we’d gone up, quiet-like, like little mice. Except we’d forgotten come morning, so Essie and I were happily clomping about our shared room, squabbling good-naturedly over who’s supposed to have the hairbrush.

Iova had opened her door a crack and poked her head out when we were bustling out, shawls askew and already half out of breath.

“Oh!” I said, brought up short so that Essie bumped into my back with an _oof!_

Iova was tall for an elf, her long red ringlets piled with a kind of careless artfulness atop her head so that bunches of it trailed down the sides of her face. Bright green eyes gleamed somewhat tiredly, but she managed a smile. “My new neighbours,” she said, and held out a hand.

“Whoops!” Essie said and clasped my shoulders.

“Whoops indeed!” I added, unable to tear my gaze from the narrow face with its spattering of golden freckles across the nose. “Mari said you were here, that you were tired. We’re so sorry. We didn’t mean to wake you.” Yet I reached out to take her hand, noting its roughness, yet the skin was clean. Her grip firm. A warrior?

“It is no problem,” she said.

Her accent – I couldn’t place it. Not Kirkwaller by birth. There was a lilt to her words, almost as if the Trade was unfamiliar. Yet she was barefaced – more proudly so than any city elf I’d ever seen. As if she were royalty. I slipped my hand from hers and fought the urge to curtsey.

“We’ll be out of your hair for the rest of the day,” I said in a rush of words. “Come by The Nag’s Shoe for a pint or two later, if you like.” I had no idea why I’d just blurted out a rush of words, and my face felt as if it were aflame all of a sudden.

A crooked grin tugged at Iova’s lips. “I may well.”

A nudge in my ribs. Essie hissed, but I glimpsed her sick grin out of the corner of my eye.

“We’ve gotta go. We’re late,” I added then dashed after a madly giggling Essie.

“I never thought you the type to slip for snatch!” she sputtered as we exited the boarding house.

My cheeks still felt heated, and I glanced over my shoulder to see who might be listening. No one we knew. “All right!” I admitted to Essie. “I hadn’t thought anything like that before but she has a way about her.”

Essie linked her arm with mine. “I may well have to change my bet with Denil before he finds out.”

I gave a little inarticulate shriek of outrage, and then we laughed the rest of the way to work. Maybe my step was a little lighter. Maybe I felt a fluttering in my belly that I’d not felt since that unfortunate encounter with that young soldier who’d gone and gotten himself run through during a brawl. Who knew?

Denil looked awful, the bruises on his face making him appear as if he should rather be abed with a herbal poultice or three. Yet he was there, faithfully polishing tables, sweeping, and I tied on an apron and got to work as well.

“You look happy,” he said.

“I’m all right, yeah?”

He raised a brow. “I been thinking.”

“Careful, you’re going to wear holes in your skull doin’ that.”

“Tart.” He stuck out his tongue.

“And so?”

He sighed, straightened, and leaned on the broom as if it were a spear. “There’s been talk down in the alienage. Meetings 'n such.”

“What’s it to me?” I paused in my rinsing off of the pewter mugs. The way he was looking at me said he’d been doing a whole bunch of thinking, and it had to do with all the stuff from yesterday that we spoke about and more. My heart started thumping a bit harder, and not in a good way neither.

“Was thinking,” he said as he absently tugged a strand of blond hair behind an ear, “you might be the right one we’re lookin’ for.”

“Who’s this ‘we’?” I asked.

“We can make a difference, Ri.” He gestured about us, his free hand held palm up while he turned about the kitchen. “Do you honestly see yourself doing this forever? You want to end up like Flissa over at the Bell and Tower, front teeth knocked out during a brawl, with three small children all by different men? Still serving drinks when she’s in her late forties?”

“She could be starving in a gutter,” I said to him. “What’s so bad about waiting on customers if it means you have a roof over your head and food in your belly?”

“We used to be _warriors_ ,” he spat. “We were once lords. We were once empire builders. Now look what we are.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Those are awfully big words for a potscrubber, don’tcha think? Those are _stories_ , Den. They happened thousands and thousands of years ago. They’re not even _real_. At least not to us. I don’t see the point hankering after stuff that’s out of reach. I’m not like my da, clinging to his old ways when the world around him keeps changing, and I’ll do my best any way I see fit.”

“ _Any_ way?” Denil’s tone had become dangerous.

I put down the pewter mug a little too hard on the sink, and we both jerked in fright at the clatter.

“Are you suggesting I’ll be on kitty corner raisin’ my skirts with all the other dubious ladies?” I brandished the cloth at him as if it might accimagically turn into a stick I could use to clobber him about his head.

“Not at all.” But he had the kind of wicked glint in his eye that suggested the words had been poised for flight behind his lips. “Look, Ri, I care about you, I care about _our people_. There’s stuff afoot, legends in the makin’ and we’re just—” He sighed. “We’re working in a bloody kitchen, with our hands pruning up. What d’ya think woulda happened if the Hero had told the Warden Commander to shove it? She’da died in the tower maybe. Or Hawke. What if he’d not sacrificed himself in the Fade, our Inquisitor—who is one of _our people_ , if I must remind you—wouldn’t have made it out. And we’d all be slaves to that Coryffy guy, vomiting up that crappy red lyrium shite. No thank you. We’ve a chance now to make things different. To make new stories. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t plan on staying in some human’s kitchen until my teeth fall out of me head.”

The door from the common room swung open right then, and Denil feigned fascination in the dishes, while Essie offloaded a whole new pile of dirty plates and tankards. She was out of breath and offered me a tremulous smile.

“Boss says the riff-raff have shown themselves the door. And I could use the help with the lot that’s still here.”

“Sure,” I said, and glanced at Denil.

But his head was still bowed over the sink and he wouldn’t catch my eye.

Essie went back out into the roaring common room and I retied my apron.

“We’ll talk later, Den,” I said.

He offered me a one-shouldered shrug.

There wasn’t time for me to worry overmuch about him for the rest of the night. I couldn’t say his words hadn’t worried me: They had. Denil was a weathervane, so far as events in the city were concerned. If there was even the slightest breeze, he’d be pointing in its direction. For him to be so impassioned gave me ample warning of the storm to come, and I couldn’t say it was something I personally looked forward to.

Yet it was easy to shove these uncomfortable thoughts aside while I worked, avoided pinches and leering mouths. Maker’s breath, and it was as if the Shoe’s clientele were going out of their way to be especially obnoxious tonight. Desiré, the young Orlesian bard who’d taken up residence with us since spring, may as well have been singing into a storm for all good her attempts at making music had. Occasionally I’d hear the plunk of a guitar string. Mostly, I just saw her mouth opening and shutting, and I could only hope that some of the customers were slipping a few coins into her hat in exchange for a song or two.

The other benefit of being in the common room was that I could keep an eye out on who might be coming or going, and while there was a fair amount of feet through the door, I didn’t see those coppery tresses I was loath to admit I was kinda looking out for.

Then again, what sensible elf would visit the Shoe on a night like this, where dozens of transport riders, artisans, coopers, farmhands and bakers were sitting cheek by jowl with soldiers, carpenters and sailors? The stench of unwashed, sweaty mostly male bodies was enough already to turn most sensitive stomachs. Not even the whores plied their trades here—and it wasn’t even that Egan wouldn’t tolerate them here.

That Egan even had a mostly female staff assisting him at all was a blooming miracle. However, we couldn’t fault him for the fact that he gave a damn about our safety. There was that.

We finished up some time after midnight, when Egan strongly suggested to the two remaining patrons that it was time for their beauty rest. Most people find it difficult to argue with Egan, who stands about six feet three, and is built, excuse my Orlesian, quite a lot like a brick shit house, as he likes to put it. Not even those who’re not in the right minds would mess with a man who has enough strength to two eight-gallon kegs of ale at a time.

“Denil’ll walk you two ladies home,” he told us.

“We’ll be fine,” Essie said.

The scowl we received from beneath those thick, dark brows was enough to make my toes curl.

“Or maybe not,” Essie squeaked.

So, we waited for Denil to fetch his cloak, and then we slipped out while our boss locked the door.

We trotted along, and I tried not to notice the way Denil’s hand kept straying to an object he had in a sheath at his waist. What glimpses I caught told me it was a wicked dagger.

“When did you take up knife-fighting?” I asked him.

“None of your business,” he bit back.

“Do you even know how to use that thing?” Essie asked, but her voice quavered slightly. I knew what she thought: Denil’d more than likely get himself impaled on the business end of his own dagger should he end up in a predicament. The shems wouldn’t take kindly to a knife-wielding elf, even if it was a case of self-defence.

“Mind yourself, lady,” he told Essie, which shut her up pretty quick.

We continued in silence afterwards, taking as many of the main thoroughfares, and keeping an eye on any gaping side streets and alleyways where malcontents might be lurking. I could tell by the way Essie pressed her lips into a thin line that she was pretty pissed about the way Denil’d snapped at her. Oh, I’d get an earful later, once we were tucked away in our attic. What had gotten into Denil? And what was up with the city that Egan was playing our body guard? I wasn’t about to tear into him here, now either. Not the time, not the place. Maybe back at work again, I could ask him to apologise to her, try find out why he was being such a nug butt.

It’s not as if Denerim’s streets are ever quiet, but this time of the night, with the moons mostly obscured by dense patches of cloud, most folks were either abed or, like us, scurrying to gain the safety from the night’s terrors in the warmth of their homes. And there had been rumours of folks going missing in the night and turning up as floaters in the river.

Even the few guards marching in pairs had their cloaks wrapped around them, and their eyes fair burnt holes in our skins as we passed them.

We couldn’t reach Mistress Marianne’s lodging house soon enough. Essie unlocked the front door with trembling hands while Denil stood between us and the street. The pale lamplight spilling out of windows painted his face in ghoulish shadows.

“What’re you doing tomorrow night?” he asked.

Essie got the door open, and I was torn between going in after her and finishing this sudden, unexpected question from Denil.

“Um, sleep late, go to the market and maybe look at some fabric. Why?” It was our day off, and I intended to make the best of it.

He shifted, looked about, then leaned in to me.

This movement was so unexpected, and I half jerked away, thinking he was trying to kiss me for some reason, but then he gripped my upper arm almost painfully. He smelled of spilled ale, sweat, and something feral.

“There’s a meeting,” he whispered in my ear. “Down by the docks, in Hagridson’s old abandoned warehouse tomorrow. No filthy shems. Come an hour before sundown.” He cast a meaningful glance at Marianne, then let go of me and hurried off into the night.

I blinked, and the shadows had swallowed him.

“What was that about?” Essie asked.

Still stunned, I stood there, then shook my head. “Nothin’. Let’s go inside. It’s cold and I need my bed.”


	3. Rumblings of discontent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite her initial misgivings, Ria joins a bunch of elves who attend a meeting where a charismatic speaker has much to say about the status quo in Denerim.

I hadn’t intended going to the meeting. Really, I’d not meant to, but it was one, random event that made me change my mind. Perhaps, ordinarily, I’d not have thought much of it. I mean, it’s not as if Denerim’s streets are decorated with roses.

Two elven children. They couldn’t have been older than five or six, a brother and sister. All around me in the market, people were bartering, shouting out the quality and price of their wares. Essie was busy haggling over a length of hemp – dyed a forest green that would go well with her dusky complexion and brown ringlets. And I stood back, easing a crick in my back since I’d slept badly the night before. That was when I noticed the way the children scratched in a pile of rubbish that had heaped up next to one of the waste bins.

From the looks of things, the grocer had dumped old carrot tops and cabbage leaves, but the children were dragging out a spoiled loaf, crumbling bits off as fast as they could. They were so intent on cramming the mouldy bits into their mouths that they didn’t see the yellow dog until it was too late. The bitch’s teats hung low—she must have pups to feed—and she was fast. Before either child knew what had happened, she’d struck, and had streaked off between adults’ legs, the awful piece of bread that was only good enough to be buried clamped firmly in her jaws.

One child turned, and a feral hiss came out of its mouth, but the other continued scrabbling, its mouth downturned into a fearful snarl.

Like little animals.

Until the grocer noticed them too close to her stall, and she took her broom at them until they too scuttled away.

“Shoo! Shoo! Knife-ears!” she shrilled.

Heads turned, but after after a few incurious stares, people went about their business as if this were no great ill to be concerned about.

The entire interchange couldn’t have taken longer than a minute, but it was as if the weight of it came down on me. How many times had I walked past my own people in such dire straits and thought them no better than the pariah dogs scrapping for bits of food others had discarded? My face flamed as I considered my relative privilege, and I began to gaze about me, take note of the occasional pinched, hollow-cheeked elven face, the downcast eyes.

“Flat-ear,” I’d been called more than once by my own kin.

“You think you’re better than us, just because you live in some human’s attic,” had been said. Many times.

Words I’d chosen to ignore because, yes, some pitiful bloom of pride lurked in my breast that I was better than the others. And sod them.

Until now.

My eyes grew scratchy, and I considered Denil’s battered features.

 _It’s not your problem_ , I wanted to keep saying.

But it _was_ my problem.

If it weren’t for Essie being my near constant companion; if it weren’t for Egan laying down the law about how elves _should_ be treated, I’d not be treated as well as I was now.

“Hey.” Essie nudged me gently. “You coming?” She peered in the direction in which I was staring blankly, and frowned, because obviously she hadn't seen what I had. 

I shook my head, pinched the bridge of my nose, as if I could dislodge these awful thoughts. “I’m fine, Ess. Just feeling a little dizzy.”

“Want to go get something to drink?”

“I think I just want to go lie down. You go on and see who’s at the Swinging Cat. I’m going on home.”

Except I didn’t go home.

Judging by the sun’s position in the sky, if I started walking now, I’d be down by the docks within half an hour, and have an hour or two to spare to find Denil’s meeting place. I was under no compulsion to attend, but I was curious. What if Denil was onto something? What if I could step outside of this all and find out if there was something I could do?

_Don’t get involved._

Those were my mother’s words—words that had, over the years, formed an invisible wall I’d not dared to breach. My mother who felt it best that we escape our people’s raw deal by crawling into the beds of human masters.

I allowed myself to bristle, just a little.

 _The humans aren’t all bad_ , I’d told myself how many times.

And yet, none of my human friends did much to ease the lot of elves in general. Why should they care? I was growing weary of rationalising, because I kept coming back to those two, pinch-faced waifs. Little ferals who’d no doubt not even hesitate to bite me if I stepped between them and a meal. We could do better. We could always do better.

Hagridson’s warehouse was tucked down an alley so narrow it was doubtful a wagon could even squeeze in to make deliveries. A little shiver of fear travelled up my spine. Perhaps the owner of this warehouse wasn’t all too concerned about making the usual sorts of deliveries. What if Denil was Fen’Harel’s halla, there to lead me into a trap?

Which is why I hung back beneath the eaves of the structure directly opposite, so that I could watch the comings and goings of the folks in the area. This was primarily the part of the district where the carpenters and lumber men plied their trade, so the air was rich with the scent of resin and sawdust. Not wholly unpleasant, and most certainly a better deal than hanging about in the block where the fish packers or tanners were situated. Few paid me any mind, though the occasional leer would be tossed my way.

I kept my hood lowered and pressed myself against the buttress. If I could wish myself invisible, I would’ve. So intent was I on remaining unseen that I nearly didn’t notice the other elf. He was tall for one of the people, his shoulders almost as broad as a human’s. Like me, he was cloaked, yet the drab olive-green fabric somehow blended in, borrowing tints and tones from the wall against which he’d pressed his back.

He stood directly opposite me, across the way, and perhaps it was the sense of being stared at that had me notice him in the first place. A flash of topaz eyes beneath the verdant vallaslin of Mythal. One of the Dalish! My heart stuttered, and I was suddenly short of breath.

Then a wagon laden with freshly cut lumber rumbled past, and when I looked again, he was gone. I scrubbed at my eyes, certain that they must’ve deceived me. After all, it wasn’t as if my father’s people never came to the city, but it was so rare.

It seemed somehow profound that this elf had been here, now, at the same time that I was, so I moved from my spot and, slipped between the workmen to the spot where he’d stood. Not even footprints in the muddy ground. What did I expect? Just wax paper, apple cores and gnawed nug bones.

A hand clamped down on my shoulder and I squealed in fright, spinning right around into Denil’s strong arms.

He laughed. “Oh, I don’t believe my eyes! You actually came.”

“Denil!” I managed to free one of my hands so that I could thump him on his chest with an ineffectual fist.

This just made him laugh all the more. “Oh, your face. You look like you nearly crapped your underthings!”

“Arse!”

“C’mon! Let’s go in so long.” All too familiar, he slung his arm over my shoulder and led me down the alleyway.

“There was another—” I stopped myself.

“Another?” He turned his face to mine.

“Never mind.” For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to speak of the elf I’d seen. Why, I couldn’t tell. It was as if my tongue became numb at the mere thought.

“I’m so glad you could come,” Denil said. “We have our new leader down from Kirkwall. She’s amazing. You’ll like her.”

“You seem awfully sure of yourself.”

He nodded, but didn’t have an opportunity to speak further, for he ushered me through a door that opened into a large storeroom filled with an assortment of crates. Only a few lamps had been lit, so the entire room was shrouded in shadows, but I could still discern the dozen or so elves who perched on crates or leaned against pillars and walls in a rough semi-circle around a make-shift podium that had been set up.

There was no mistaking _her_ , however.

Iova stood in the centre of the space, conferring with an older male elf in low tones. The male kept shaking his head, scowling, but Iova spoke urgently with him. When she placed a hand on his wrist, he seemed to calm somewhat. Then Denil caught my attention again by bringing me to the back row, where we made ourselves comfortable.

“That’s the new lodger there by us,” I said to him.

His eyes widened. “Really?” He seemed genuinely surprised, and then he smiled. “That’s fantastic! You’ll see, she’s going to lead us to great things. You’ll understand.”

I frowned at him. “What do you mean ‘you’ll understand’?”

“All this”—he waved around us—“what’s happening, it’s important. We’re standing up for the people.”

I opened my mouth to say something acerbic about any notions of elven pride, but then those two little pinched faces from the market earlier haunted me. I was here for a reason, wasn’t I?

“Iova’s helping us organise,” he said. “She’s in contact with those who’re behind the rebellion.”

“Organise for _what_ exactly?” I asked.

“You’ll see.”

My misgivings almost had me get up and leave, but just then, Iova finished speaking with the old elf, who vanished off out the back door. She looked about her then turned to us. “Is this it for tonight?”

“Yup,” someone in the front said.

Iova sighed, but then her gaze did the rounds and she ended on me, and a genuinely warm smile graced her lips. She offered me the slightest of nods but then she drew a deep breath, and began to speak.

“I’m glad you could come tonight. I know it was short notice and I’m sorry to see that so many couldn’t come.”

“They’re scared,” another elven woman said, from the other side of the semi-circle. “There were more attacks this week.”

“Aye,” Denil said.

Iova’s shoulders slumped slightly. “We’ll need more than this. Are you sure you couldn’t get more?”

“They’re all leaving for the forest,” said someone else.

“Understood, but we need some of you to stay here. There’s already talk.”

“Easy for you to speak,” said another male. “You come wafting in here, all mysterious like, and are free to come and go, while the rest of us have to grub about in the dirt for work.”

Agitated muttering broke out, and she let it peter off before she squared her shoulders. “I know what I’m asking is a lot, but if we have any hope for our people, it must be to stand together. You have mates, children, family. You care about them deeply. You want a world in which our people don’t have to eke out an existence in the shadows of the humans, don’t you? You want some reassurance that you won’t be spirited off by Tevinter slavers or be devoured by the Qun. Or even beaten by some shemlen scum out for _a night of rabbit hunting_.” She sneered the last few words, which sparked off more angry mutterings.

There was something hypnotic about the way she spoke, her voice lilting, honeyed, and I despite my initial resistance, I found myself nodding along while she outlined the past ills and how we could make a stand, how we could claw back our pride and our heritage from the humans.

“Many, many years ago, the elven god Fen’Harel freed our people. They were enslaved by the ones the Dalish call upon as gods. They look down on us, call us bare-faced shems, but it is _they_ who are still enslaved by ancient lies.

“I tell you now that Fen’Harel has awakened from his slumbers, and this time he is here to help all his people. He is not some god who is remembered in a shrine, but is a being of flesh and blood. He comes to tell us that _we can be free_ , we can live to our full potential. That the old superstitions are just that—lies told to keep us in check, to keep us meek and biddable.”

“This is great, don’t you think?” Denil’s breath was hot in my ear.

I suppressed a small shudder. The words sounded wonderful, inspirational even, but they didn’t seem real.

Muttering broke out again. Iova’s spell wasn’t quite as strong in its warp and weft as she’d obviously hoped. It all sounded like the kind of story a mother would tell her child.

“We need proof!” an older woman called from diagonally to our left.

Heads turned; a few muttered assents followed.

Iova held up her hands. “I can do more than that. Fen’Harel sends aid for our cause.”

“What? Is he going to run the stinking round-ears into the Amaranthine?” cried a man on my right, causing a whole bunch of us to whip our heads around.

None of this seemed to bother Denil at all. He sat next to me, clenching and unclenching his hands, his eyes fever bright.

Then a figure dropped down from the rafters and landed near the door. It was the tall, cloaked elf from earlier. “Iova!” he cried, and then mouthed off in what sounded like what the Dalish spoke, but all rapid fire.

Iova’s calm composure cracked for an instant when her features were twisted briefly into rage, but then she straightened, rounded on the intruder, and took half a step forward. I caught maybe one or two words, something about sorrow and not even being worthy of the one whose mark he bore.

But by that stage it was also pretty obvious that the atmosphere was a lot more charged than I was prepared to stick around for, because the air began to smell of ozone and held the particular crackle to it that suggested that he was no doubt a mage of some shape or form.

I’m not ashamed to say that I grabbed Denil by his arm and dragged him bodily from the aborted meeting. I’d not made it to my twenty summers by putting myself in the middle of conflict between those who apparently knew better than I.


	4. Wicked lips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ri finds a night of passion where she least expects it.

It was already growing dark by the time Denil and I hurried away from the warehouse. Thankfully he’d come to his senses when there’d been a loud bang and a bright flash behind us. Neither of us was all that keen to be frozen or smashed by a mage’s bolt of lightning.

Yet by the time we reached one of the main thoroughfares that took us back into the city proper, Denil dragged at me, kept looking over his shoulder.

“We shouldn’t have run like that,” he said.

I glanced about, nervous about just the two of us out after sunset. So far just a pair of guards walking away from us, and a transporter checking his oxen’s harness to our left.

I still had a death grip on Denil’s arm.

“We need to keep going,” I said. “Iova’s dangerous. And she’s talking mad stories. Like the stuff you’d read in one of those Varric Tethras novels.”

Denil turned, bared his teeth at me. “Sometimes stories are what we need.”

“She’s talking about _rebellion_.” I glanced about again, tugged hard. “C’mon. Let’s at least get off the streets in case we invite attention.”

He ripped his arm from my grip. “You go on. Go back home. Where you’re _safe_.” He spat the last word at me. The gleam in his eyes was anything but friendly.

“Fine!” I pulled my cloak around me, tugged up the hood and turned my back on him. I wasn’t about to let him see that his words had stung.

And yet… Five paces on, I turned, but the street was empty of all but the transporter, who glanced up from his work to give me a lewd wink.

That was enough for me. I hurried back to a more familiar quarter. The next time I saw Denil… I shook my head. I’d tell him exactly what was on my mind for abandoning me.

I hadn’t even gone three blocks, and had mercifully entered a byway where there were a number of taverns along a road near the market district, when someone called out.

“Hey! Ria! It’s Ria, right?”

If it hadn’t been a woman calling my name, I’d have ignored the person. But I stopped, turned.

Iova was hurrying towards me, her cloak pulled loosely over her shoulders and her red curls bouncing on her shoulders. My stomach jolted at the sight of her.

“Denil’s off looking for you!” I said as she caught up to me.

She placed one strong hand on my shoulder. “I’ve sent him on home with the others; he’s fine. I’m sorry about what happened back there.”

I glanced over her shoulder, but I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. That mysterious Dalish elf?

Iova inclined her head, and I could tell that she followed the direction in which I looked. “He’s gone.”

“Who was that who interrupted your meeting?” Never mind the stories she’d been spouting

“No one that matters to you. Now, about that drink I missed the other night”—she linked her arm in mine and dragged me along—“I’m sorry I didn’t come round but…something came up.”

“You wouldn’t have wanted to be there either,” I said. “Rough night.” I tried to imagine Iova seated at a table in the Nag, and realised quickly that I’d been an idiot for even suggesting it in the first place. “But I do know this other place…”

My stomach twisted itself upside down and reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since noon. And I studied Iova’s features surreptitiously, trying to figure out whether she’d even be interested in spending time with the likes of me. I guess there was only one way to find out.

Yet she didn’t pull her arm from mine while we walked to the place I was thinking of, which was near the alienage, so there was that.

“You’re not from around here?” I asked her. “I can’t quite place the accent.” My earlier assessment of Kirkwall just didn’t seem right.

“I’ve travelled, a lot,” she said.

“Any place interesting?”

“Spent some time in the Dales, Tevinter even.” She grimaced at that.

“Tevinter?”

“Some rich magister’s pet for a while.” She lifted her sleeves to reveal a scar around each wrist. “He wasn’t very kind.”

I couldn’t suppress a gasp. “You escaped.”

“Well, obviously.” She winked and offered a crooked smile.

“And now you’re inspiring the downtrodden masses to revolt.”

“Among other things.” Another wry twist of a smile. “But let’s not talk of these things on the road. There are people with long ears and all that. And by that I don't mean us.”

I nodded, and we picked our way along until we came to the beginnings of the alienage. Since the wall had come down, some of the elves had started moving into the tenements on the outskirts. It wasn’t exactly the best of neighbourhoods, but it still beat living in the alienage proper. Here and there were signs of our people, in murals painted on walls, of an oak sapling planted in the sidewalk, with stones packed around its roots and painted white.

Pinch-faced elven children peered at us through windows, and even out here, in the quieting streets, I could hear the drums, the sawing fiddles. We slipped into a side alley where mousers slunk, and then hurried down a set of narrow stairs that vanished into a basement of one of the dwellings.

The Broken Branch had served as a tavern ever since I could remember, however it was only since the wall came down that elves had been made welcome, and with the slow spread out of the alienage, more and more of the clientele here had become elven.

Which was not bad, all things considered. It was one of the few venues where no one batted an eyelid whether you were elf, dwarf, human, or even a hulking Tal Vashoth, though the Maker alone knew those folks were hardly welcome in Denerim these days.

Two drummers and a fiddler provided the lively reels that had the good folks of the Branch stomping and twirling in the limited space available beneath the low, barrel-vaulted ceiling. I think a few years ago this used to be someone’s wine cellar, back when these tenements were still relatively new and fancy. Now Iova and I squeezed ourselves into one of the two-seater tables at the far end, half obscured by the staircase. I nearly regretted coming here, because the music and the laughter were too loud for us to have a proper conversation.

Maybe conversation in this context wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. We ordered servings of the nug stew that the place was known for, washed down with icy pints of cider. Iova kept smiling at me in a way that was entirely too knowing, and I kept giving her sidelong glances. Our attempts at discussion went along the lines of, “Sorry, can you repeat that?” or “What did you say?” until eventually we gave up attempting to make sense.

Whatever it was that had happened back at the warehouse obviously didn’t perturb her too much if she was sitting with me here, now, where we were surrounded by normal folks. The drums teased out a hypnotic rhythm, and I couldn’t help but tap my foot, drum my fingers on the table’s much-scarred wood, and eventually when Iova grabbed me by the wrist and swung me into the seething mass of bodies squeezed onto the only available space for dancing, I didn’t protest.

She threw back her head, her ringlets escaping their bun, and she laughed. Or at least I thought she was laughing, and her hip kept bouncing into mine or her hand strayed to my thigh. All around us others were clapping, grinning, bumping into one another, and I couldn’t recall when last I’d had so much fun.

Essie and I certainly hadn’t come out here in a long, long while, and perhaps it wasn’t such a great idea considering I had to work tomorrow, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. Somehow, after two lively reels, I found myself pressed up against the wall in a darkened alcove, Iova’s mouth hot yet soft on mine, her tongue gently probing, continuing the dance now that our bodies had ground to a halt. And I responded in kind, my entire being alive with the closeness, the promise of pleasure, so that eventually nothing mattered beyond this woman with her deft hands and the fevered insistence of her kisses.

No words were shared when she tugged me away, and we fetched our cloaks from where we’d hooked them over the backs of our chairs—that they were still there spoke volumes about the levels of trust among the patrons—and we hurried into the chill autumn night, our breath misting before our faces.

Both moons were up, yet were pressing their faces through the scudding clouds. The scent of moisture hung heavy in the air—it would most certainly rain later tonight.

“Come back to my room with me,” Iova said, her fingers knotting themselves with mine in a way I knew would make it difficult to refuse her.

I wasn’t thinking with my head, now, was I?

“You’re not going to take advantage of me, oh elven lady?” I kept my laugh light, but my heart was thudding. She wanted more!

“That depends.” She cocked her head, revealing a dimple in the moonlight.

“C’mon then,” I said and tugged her along.

I was giddy, whether it was from the cider, the dancing in the close confines of a tiny tavern, or the rush of the anticipation, or perhaps a combination of all of the aforementioned, I couldn’t tell, and I don’t suppose it mattered as we clattered up the steps once we arrived at our lodging house.

I spared a momentary pang of guilt for Essie, knowing that I hadn’t told her I was sleeping out, but by then Iova had fumbled her door open and had all but dragged me bodily into her room.

And it was a lovely room—twice the size of the one I shared with Essie, and with three dormer windows overlooking the street below instead of the wall of the building next door like ours did.

We fell upon the unmade bed in a tangle of limbs and skirts, and we somehow contrived to swim out of our garments so that ours was the sliding of skin over skin, the parting of legs and the trail of moisture on thighs as fingers sought to plunder treasure.

Her tongue was wicked, and she knew exactly where to nip, lick or suck, until I was sobbing, pleading and arching into her. So many times she brought me to the brink, only visit torment on some other part of me. Try as I might, I tried to visit torture upon her in return, but she was far stronger than I.

“I like to see you struggle,” she said. “I will wring my pleasure out of you more than once, my darkling.”

“Darkling?”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

It was during the early hours of morning, when dawn pressed her soft fingers past the tapestry that served as a curtain and the last of the night soil carts rattled down the road that we slipped into deepest slumber. I wasn’t even certain when last I slept so well with another woman curved around me, the damp press of her mound against the small of my back. More than anything, with her warm breath tickling my ear lobe, I felt safe, content like a cat that has made off with a herring.

It was the scent of burning elfroot that woke me, and I sat up sleepily, at first not certain why I was naked and in a strange bed that smelled of rare musk and dawn lotus. Iova sat in the dormer window, her shapely legs tucked up under the oversized tunic she’d shrugged on. Her small, even teeth clicked on the end of the long-stemmed pipe she brought to her lips.

“You sleep like the dead,” she said with a wicked grin.

“Elfroot, this early?” I mumbled, knuckling my eyes.

“Takes the edge off.”

I pulled the top blanket about me like a cloak and stumbled across to where she perched, and she opened her legs so that I might nestle between her thighs. I tilted so that I might capture the smoke from her lips, and for a while that was all that mattered, this soft exchange of breath. The elfroot wriggled its little green fingers through my veins and the world took on a hazy glow.

Her smile was hypnotic, her fingers everywhere as we once again lost ourselves in each other. It was only when someone rapped hard on the door that we broke apart. Somehow I’d ended up on my knees before her, worshipping the secrets between her legs.

“Who’s there?” Iova called.

“Is Ri up yet?”

Essie. The walls were thin, and my face was aflame. Neither of us had been quiet.

“Shit!” I mumbled, wiping at my mouth, my face as I stumbled to my feet.

I should have told Essie where I was. Perhaps the entire lodging househeard us. Yet I could’ve told Essie, couldn’t I?

My guilt was fresh and hot, and undid all the warmth and well-being the elfroot had lent me. Now my mouth tasted as if a nug had made a midden in it, as I desperately began searching for my clothing that I’d so helpfully scattered all about the floor the night before.

“Coming, Essie!” I cried.

Iova laughed but didn’t budge from where she sat.

“You’re going to be late!” Essie gave the door another wallop and then her footsteps retreated down the landing, and I heard her take the stairs.

“Shit, shit, shit!” I couldn’t find my left boot.

“Calm down, darkling,” Iova said.

“What is the hour?”

Iova peered out into the street. “Past noon, I suppose.”

“My boss is going to flay me.”

“No, he won’t. How often are you late?”

“Never.”

“Then he’s not going to go rough on you if it’s just this one time, is he?”

She looked so damned calm, sitting there.

I huffed out a breath and sat heavily on the bed. My head was a mess of thoughts, and everything that had happened during the past day had been so intense, I wasn’t sure what was going on.

“Thank you,” I said. “For last night.”

“You looked like you could use a good bit of lovemaking.”

“How did… I mean…”

She winked. “I took a chance.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“You’re a decent little trollop, Ri. Don’t you forget that.”


	5. Love's Bitter Pill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ria's new love interest causes friction between her and a long-time friend

Essie was giving me the silent treatment. Every hour that we spent at work was excruciating – every little barbed comment, the too-sweet smiles that didn’t quite reach her eyes. To make matters worse, Denil’d taken off sick too, so when I volunteered to help with the dishes out back, I didn’t let slip that it was only so that I didn’t have to constantly be faced with Essie’s attitude.

All right, all right, I was a special shit for not telling her that I was going to be out late and for being a cause for her to worry about me.

In the two years that Essie and I had shared lodgings, I’d always told her if I was going to be late, and she’d always let me know if she was going to spend the night out.

Not that either of us had done much spending the night out with lovers during the past year or so. Maker’s arse, we were turning into right royal spinster aunts. All we needed now was a few nugs, and we’d be well on our way to rocking chairs in no time.

So, it was me up to my elbows in grey, sudsy water drifting with bits of unmentionables from the meals, and the steam. The kitchen was never my favourite place in the tavern at the best of times, and I couldn’t bring myself to complain when Essie simply dumped the dirty plates without scraping them out first. I deserved that.

Every time the door slapped open, the roar from the interior would momentarily grow in volume. Essie would dump crockery or take clean items out to where Egan was serving, and I’d pray that the ordeal would end sooner rather than later.

I’d talk to her later. Find some way to make up for no doubt having scared her shitless.

I mean, with all the bad stuff happening to my people in Denerim at present, I couldn’t blame her for being angry now, could I?

But before I had more time to stew on Essie's bad mood, the back door squeaked open, and a shadow slipped in.

I whipped round, grabbed the first thing handy – in this case a bread knife – and brandished it at the intruder.

It was Denil, standing with his back pressed against the door as if he might prevent someone from entering after him. His hair had pulled loose from its tail and straggled in blond wisps about his face, and he was breathing heavily.

“Andraste’s tits, you arse!” I yelled at him even as I slammed the bread knife down on the sink’s counter.

The resultant clang was so loud we both jerked in fright.

He put his index finger to his lips. “Shhh.” Then he went over to the kitchen door leading to the interior of the tavern, poked his head into the main room and then closed the door.

“There’s not much time.”

“What?”

Denil reached into his sling bag and pulled out a package. It was the size of half a loaf of bread and he offered it to me. “I need you to keep this in a safe place. Tell Iova I was disturbed before I could get more.”

I stood numbly as he thrust the item into my hands then tried to shove it back at him before he dropped it. “You take that back.”

“Don’t drop it!” he yelled, pushing it harder into my grip.

A horrible, itchy stab of fear nearly had me drop the damn thing anyway. “What is it?”

“It’s on a need-to-know basis. Don’t drop it. Take it to Iova. Tell her I need to lie low for a week or two.”

Then he was out the kitchen as fast as he’d arrived, just as Essie shoved open the kitchen door. She barely spared me a glance as she dumped a pile of plates and sashayed right out again.

“What the…”

The package was loosely wrapped in old swaddling and tied with string. What was slightly more alarming was that the thing was warm to the touch in a way that had nothing to do with fire, and everything to do with what I suspected might be magic.

“Fuck you, Denil,” I murmured. My heart was racing and I had absolutely no idea what to do about this.

What were the chances that I’d get into even more trouble if I dumped the package the first opportunity that came up? And if I played go-between? What then?

The worst part was Denil’s assumption that I’d just blithely play along.

To make matters worse, Essie barged back into the kitchen right then, while I was standing by the door holding the offending item.

“Eh, what’s that?”

I was surprised she was even talking to me, and my mouth may have opened or shut a few times. “Nothing.” I turned and hurried to the staff cloak rack, where I stuffed the offending item into my slingbag as if it has always meant to be there.

Essie’s breath was hot on my neck. “Are you _stealing_?”

I rounded on her, hands held up in defence. “No!”

“Egan says someone’s been lifting stock.”

“It’s not me! Honest! It was just some…friend of Denil’s who came and dropped something off for me to give to Iova.” I didn’t see any point in lying more than I had to.

“Let me see what’s inside.” Her expression turned ugly. This side of Essie was one I’d never expected to see in all the years that we’d been friends.

“It’s private!”

She made a grab for my bag but I stepped in front of her. “No.”

For a moment, I feared that she would raise her hand at me, but apart from the way her lips thinned into a bloodless line, there was no such movement.

Instead she turned and stalked out. When she reached the door leading into the tavern, she paused, and called over her shoulder, “Egan will hear about this.”

 _Shit, shit, shit_.

“Fine,” I said, and I waited until she’d left, and then dragged the parcel out and hurried with it to the garbage. There I shoved it under something awful and unmentionable, and prayed that it’d be there later.

Then I went back inside, where I had just managed to wash all the gunk from outside off my arms when Egan stormed in with Essie. His brow was furrowed, and he looked read in the face.

“’ere, what’s this that Essie tells me then?” he thundered.

With great difficulty I maintained eye contact. “Nothing. A misunderstanding.” How could she have turned on me like this?

Essie had already gone to the cloak rack, where she triumphantly yanked my bag from its hook. But of course there was no incriminating evidence to be found.

“It was here!” she yelled.

Egan glared at both of us. “I don’t understand what is going on here, but I don’t like it.”

My skin felt too tight at that point, as if someone had stuck a screw in my back and was slowly turning it so that I was pulling away from my bones.

I didn’t understand what was happening either. How could everything go for a pot of shit so quickly? All I did was attend that one stupid meeting, and now…

“I don’t know what Ri has done to you, that you feel you need to accuse her of something so base. If anyone’s suspect, he’s not here tonight, and let’s leave it that.”

“But she’s—”

“What, Essie?” I said. “Were you going to say that I’m a knife-ear and that’s why I’m _stealing_?” The accusation was a hot coal on my tongue and I regretted spitting it out the moment it passed my lips.

Essie blanched, her mouth parted, and her eyes became brighter for a second before she dashed her wrist across her face. “I can’t deal with this right now.”

“Go out, and serve my customers!” Egan roared at Essie.

We both jerked. Our boss could be abrupt, but he _never_ had to shout at us.

Then, as she hurried out, he turned to me.

“And you! Whatever it is that you’re doing, you sort your shit out with Essie. And maybe you should take a week or two off while I get to the bottom of this.”

“But—”

“I’ll pay you two weeks’ wages.” His face softened. “I know there’s shit going on in this town, and there’s shit going on here that I need to sort out.”

“So you’re paying me…”

“I’m _protecting_ you,” he said. “If you’re not here, and things are still going missing, then I know you’re innocent of blame. And I have the proof.”

Except Denil was lying low too. If he was the one stealing stuff, he’d not be here either. I nearly told Egan everything there and then. I mean, he’d taken me on when no one else would. I’d worked for him for the past four years already. We were practically _family_ , so far as I was concerned. Though what had crawled over my best friend's liver for her to turn on me like that I didn't know. 

I was such a boot heel, because by the time the two weeks were up, he’d have enough evidence to suspect I was the one stealing. And yet…

A little inner voice whispered: _He’s shemlen. Never forget that. He’s not your people_.

And I listened to that little voice because, well, shit, I couldn’t forget the way Denil looked that evening he came in all bruised up. I couldn’t ignore that my people, as much as I held myself apart from them, were leaving in droves. That an elven rebellion was happening right under our noses. Even if my own part in it was somewhat reluctant.

There, I’d admitted it.

That realisation put lead in my feet as I followed Egan to his office, where he opened his strongbox, removed the agreed-upon two weeks’ wages and folded them into a scrap of cloth.

“I’ll get one of the lads to walk you home,” he said. “In case.”

I tucked the money in my bodice. “I’ll be fine.”

My heart felt as if it would shatter my ribs.

_Tell him._

I swallowed, shook my head.

“What’s the matter?” Worry creased his brow.

“Nothing. Thank you. I’m just… Overwhelmed.”

“I care about you, lass. Your mother and I…well. We go back a long way.”

I nearly choked. Another one of my mother’s past lovers. I’d always suspected, but to have my suspicions confirmed.

I reached out, patted Egan’s sleeve. “Thank you.”

“And you sort your issues out with Essie. It’s like having two of my daughters at odd ends with each other. I don’t like it. I won’t intervene. It’s not my place. But whatever it is, I'd like to see you make peace.”

It was difficult to hide the deep, shuddery inhalation, but I hoped I did a good job of masking my nervousness with a sharp nod of the head and a tight smile. “I will.”

“Just finish up out back. We’re closing early tonight in any case.”

“Oh?”

He frowned. “There’s been some sort of ruckus two blocks down. Guards came by saying that their captain’s calling curfew.” Egan heaved a sigh. “So everyone’s to down their last pint and head home. I swear I can’t wait for this all to be over. It’s bad for business.”

That’s when another weevil of suspicion nibbled. He was paying me off to not only keep me above suspicion, but also to keep himself safe. Would two weeks even be enough?

“I’ll be fine to get home, boss.”

“Are you sure? I don’t like—”

“No. Really. I know a few short cuts through busy areas. I promise I’ll keep out of trouble. You know me, I’ve got Denerim’s dirt in my blood. I can’t get lost.”

Egan huffed out a breath. “I don’t like this…”

“Egan, really.” I summoned my most winning smile, and was gratified to see him relax somewhat.

By the time I returned to the kitchen, Essie’s cloak was already gone from the row of pegs. As if she would’ve waited for me. But no mind. I finished with the last of the prep, made sure all the cupboards were latched, and then slipped on my cloak.

Bran, one of the lads from front of shop, came in, so I asked him to lock after me once I went out back via the service alley where the rubbish was dumped. He looked askance at me until I told him that I had to toss out some used feminine things, and that it was quicker for me to go home once I was already out that way.

He blushed something furious and mercifully didn’t follow after me.

By now I may as well have been dancing on broken glass. What if someone had found that packet I’d stashed in the rubbish? What if someone saw me retrieve it? And if I left it there? What then? How much trouble would I be in? Any more than I already was in?

I stood in that darkened alley, clenching and unclenching my fists. The autumnal bite in the air did little to calm me, and I was certain my heart beat so hard that anyone walking a dozen paces from me would hear my pulse loud and clear, like a fairground drum.

Then a rat nearly as large as one of my landlady’s mousers skittered past my feet, and I gave a little shriek, and hurried to the pile of garbage where I’d hidden Denil’s cursed parcel. For a moment I feared that someone had been there after me to remove it, but then my probing fingers scraped against the fabric amid the sludge, and I removed the noisome object.

As if to mock me further, a chill gust brought with it further darkness and the first few spits of rain. I’d gone two blocks by the time the heavens opened, and I was drenched to the skin within a minute. The only blessings I could find in this awfulness was that no one in their right mind would seek to waylay me. They’d be too busy seeking shelter themselves. Then there was the added benefit that I was able to wash the worst of the rubbish off me too.

Small blessings.

My hair and clothing were plastered against my skin by the time I arrived at the lodging house.

I was shivering so hard that my teeth rattled in my head, and I could barely fit the key in the lock and shove open the door. The more unpleasant part of the night still lay ahead of me: dealing with Essie. I could only hope that by now she’d calmed down and would see reason. It was so unlike her to be so unreasonable. Unless…

My progress upstairs was soggy, and my boots squelched with every step. I paused on the landing, stunned by my realisation.

What if Essie wasn’t merely angry with me for not telling her that I was spending the night out, but there was something more to it? She was _jealous_. I should have seen it sooner.

Dozens of tiny gestures suddenly made sense—the way she insisted on combing and braiding my hair, having my tea ready for me before I woke, the way she sometimes linked her arm with mine…

“No.” I half laughed, shook my head.

I mean, I loved Essie, but like she was my own sister. Not more. I tried to see her as anything else but a good friend, but the picture seemed wrong. Like the pieces didn’t quite fit. Why ruin a perfectly good friendship by bringing sex into it anyway? And now, I’d gone and fucked things up anyway.

“Maker’s balls,” I muttered as I resumed my journey upstairs.

This was going to be so unpleasant.

Yet when I reached the fourth floor, the landing was enshrouded in darkness. No sign of life from the room I shared with Essie, but the door to Iova’s offered me a blade of buttery light, and the waft of incense made my nose prickle.

An obvious invitation.

I sighed, wiped my brow with one trembling, frozen hand.

This was one of those moments you read about—where the heroine finds herself in a quandary. Neither choice is easy or particularly pleasant, because the repercussions of each will have long-reaching effects throughout the rest of the story. And the heroine is guaranteed to wonder, at some point a lot later, what would have happened if she’d chosen the other course of action.

“Fuck me.”

I chose Iova’s door.

Path of least resistance, no?


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ri hits rock bottom, but Iova reminds her that at the end of the day, it's her people who should look out for each other.

“Hey.” Iova looked up from the piles of papers and small items scattered on her bed. Her hair was pulled back into its usual, messy bun. Her warm smile vanished as she took in my bedraggled appearance.

She rose, rushed to me, and pulled me to the small hearth where a few embers were still glowing. “You’re _soaked_!”

By this stage my teeth were chattering so hard, I could barely speak. I was just grateful for someone taking me under their wing. I shook so much I nearly dropped the package, which she fumbled into her arms with a shocked expression.

“What the—”

“D-d-denil. H-h-he’s run into trouble.”

Her mouth pulled into a thin line of anger, she gently placed the package on her bedside table then returned to me and helped me out of my wet clothes.

“Look at you. Didn’t you have a cloak or something?”

“N-n—”

“Hush, don’t talk. I was up because…” She turned her head meaningfully to the corner, and that’s when I saw my few bags and things all piled up.

I gasped.

“Essie was quite firm about this, I’m afraid. She had some things to say, but I told her where she could rather go continue flapping her jaw.”

My vision blurred then; my friendship was well and truly broken now. I didn’t even want to know what Essie said. To know that she was but a short walk across the landing, and that she’d turned her back on me… That was when my knees gave way, but Iova was there for me, her arms strong as she lowered me to a blanket she’d laid out before the fire. She threw another over my shoulders then fetched a towel with which she could rub my hair dry.

“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled.

“You’re well rid of the shem, if you ask me. If she can turn on you to accuse you of being a long-fingered sneak, then she was no friend of yours truly.”

“But all those years…”

Only ever since I’d started working at the Nag, if I were honest. And we’d only lived together this past year.

My tears made hot tracks down my cheeks, but Iova was there to kiss them away, and I had no words when she held me against her, and some of her warmth seeped into me. Truly, this moment could last forever, so I could forget all the awfulness of the day, of the problems slowly creeping up on me that I could no longer deny.

What were the chances that I could go work at the Nag again? I’d pitch up there in two weeks’ time and Egan would call me into his office, sit me down, and then with a rueful shake of his head deliver the bad news. This was just his way of easing his conscience, of giving me an opportunity to find something new.

And my mother? Could I arrive on her doorstep with my bags in hand? Admit to her that I’d failed?

Another wild notion: Could I head out for the Brecilian forest where all my other people had apparently vanished between the venerable trees, to join some sort of vague rebellion no one had any firm grip on yet?

What of my father? Dare I go seek him out and try to make a life for myself among the Dalish? That had never even been an option for me all those years ago, and I couldn’t see it becoming one now.

Hard sobs wracked me, but Iova was there to gently rub my back and shoulders, to hush me and eventually give me a glass of perry to sip.

“Go slow with that,” she said. “You don’t want a hangover tomorrow.”

I nodded, and took another mouthful of the liquor. It tasted of sunshine and sweetness, and trailed fire down into my belly. Iova had put more wood on the fire, which now licked bright tongues against the grate, and I could almost believe that my situation wasn’t as dire as I’d initially surmised.

“What are we going to do?” I asked her.

She cocked her head, reminding me almost of a quizzical hound. “Nothing, for now.”

“I may not have a job. Egan’s basically given me a fortnight’s pay. With the excuse that there’s trouble, but I think he’s laying off all his elven employees.”

“Fucking shems. Typical.”

“But what will I do? It’s the only job I’ve got.” My bleak despair threatened to crawl up from my feet so it could throttle me.

Iova leaned forward, placed a warm hand on my forearm. “Seriously, Ri, do you see yourself working in a tavern for the rest of your life? How old are you now?”

“Nineteen.” I swallowed back a sob.

“There is more under the sun than working until your back breaks for the shemlen. Look how easy it is for them to cast you off when you become inconvenient. There is more for our people than being glorified slaves for our oppressors. Sure, the alienage walls have come down, but we still have walls built in our minds. The chains we can't see. Or touch. We’re better than what we think we are.”

“But what will I do? I’m too old to be apprenticed. I don’t have any magical skills, so I couldn’t even go seek out the college. Maker’s arse, I’m even too old to be a whore.”

“Don’t say things like that!” Iova was frowning now, her teeth bared. “You’re not thinking far ahead. I can help you.”

“Why would you? You barely know me. That’s hardly a reason to stick your neck out for a stranger, even if we’ve shared a bed.”

“You are a little twit, aren’t you?” She gave a raw bark of laughter. “So mistrustful.”

“I’ve seen what happens to people who are too trusting in this city. They wake up in a gutter with their pockets turned inside out, or if they’re extra lucky, chained and packed off for Tevinter. You of all people should know.”

I shouldn’t have said that last bit, because her gaze turned hard. “Hush now. You’re tired, overwrought. I won’t say much now, except that I know people. And they know people. And it’s not just this stinking shemlen city but a whole community of elves, all lookin’ out for one another. I know you believe that you haven’t got anything special, but that’s a lie. We’ve all got something we can call our own, something that can help the others. It’s merely a case of the right people being in the right place, at the right time.”

“Yeah?” I said to her.

She smiled. “Yeah. Trust me. You’ve had a horrible day. Come to bed. Tomorrow will take care of itself.”

The perry must’ve been stronger than usual, or perhaps the trials I’d faced caught up with me but I felt my eyelids grow heavier, and it was easier simply to let Iova take control of me, her hands sure as she guided me to her bed and curled her strong body around mine. If dreams did come knocking, I was too sunk in my own misery to heed their call.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ri begins to realise that the life Iova offers comes at a cost – and she's not sure if she's willing to pay.

Iova didn’t give me the opportunity to mope, and for that I was grateful. I was her errand girl, she said with a laugh. Then she’d send me about Denerim. Mostly it was going to assorted craftsmen and merchants for items. I never knew what these items were, just that I must handle some of them gently.

I didn’t have to be told to tread lightly, though. The mood in the city was ugly.

Elven runes had started showing up, painted in drippy crimson like slashes of blood on walls. As fast as the city guard had folks painting them over, they’d appear elsewhere. Several times I glimpsed elves being bundled off, but I’d make sure that I pulled the hood of my cloak low, and I’d hurry down a side street.

A slow, simmering rage shivered just under my skin—that was the only way I could describe it. How was it that I’d missed all this these past few months? Then again, up until now, my life had been spent under the Nag’s roof or in my rooms, or in the market. No more, no less. I’d been surrounded by familiar faces the whole time, carefully insulated against the worst.

The stories I’d heard had been just that—tragedies that happened to other people, whispered about over pints of ale. Up until the point where Denil had pitched up at work all broken and bruised, and I’d begun my descent into the _other_ side of the city I’d never imagined even existed.

During the late afternoons, I’d accompany Iova as she went to visit our people. Where she got her money from, I had no idea, for she always bought bread, fruit, vegetables, and sometimes even some meat for the elves we visited in their grimy tenements. Pinch-faced housewives dandling babies on their hips would receive us, and all the while Iova would be speaking of the Dread Wolf, Fen’harel himself, in such glowing terms.

How he came to set the captives free so many years ago, and he would bring freedom now for his people, if only they were brave enough to cast off the invisible shackles that chained them to the ungrateful shemlen.

When she spoke, her face was transformed with an inner light, that it was difficult for me to doubt that she didn’t have some talent for magic. You can laugh in hindsight, I guess, that persuasive speakers can lead the desperate astray with gilded yet empty promises. But simply _being_ with her, being _needed_ , and feeling as if I served some sort of higher purpose instead of standing at a sink up to my elbows in dirty dishwater… That made all the difference.

Within less than a week, my previous life seemed an insipid dream, a mist vanishing with the rising of the sun.

 _He is marshalling his forces_ , she said. _And when he is ready, he’ll tear down the Veil, and all the magic will come back, and the glory of Elvhenan will be restored_.

Thing is, it wasn’t merely that I felt I was somehow part of all this; it was seeing the veneer of hopelessness lift from tired, smudged faces. It was the adults listening with the same slack-jawed wonder as the children. It was seeing how Iova would transfer that power she carried within her to others, so that they too vowed they would do what they could to aid the rebellion and help throw down all who’d done our people wrong.

We would crush Tevinter the same way they’d crushed our people, push back the Qunari so that ocean would turn red with their blood. We’d tumble Orlais’s fancy walls and all the humans would bend the knee to us.

Pride.

That’s what it was.

She had brought back our pride.

* * * *

One incident stood out from all the others, and made me realise exactly how dangerous my life had become. Iova and I were returning to our tenement after a trip to a merchant who’d just docked. The garrulous Antivan had insisted that Iova and I share a particular brand of coffee (liberally laced with a fine liqueur that tasted suspiciously of embrium). Consequently, our conversation became far more animated, and lasted until well past sunset.

By the time we hurried down the gangplank and set foot on the wharf, it was fully dark, and neither of the moons had risen yet, which meant we couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces once we’d hit the nug warren of back streets among the warehouses.

To make matters worse, the route we would have taken along the main thoroughfare had at least half a dozen city guard clearly checking any who were leaving the docks. Which meant we needed to find an alternative way back home.

“This wasn’t a good idea,” Iova muttered. “Paulo was trying to keep us late. For a reason. Slimy bastard.”

The mere fact that she was on edge put me on high alert, and I clung onto her arm much harder. Our boots rang too loudly on the cobbles, and I swallowed back a small shriek when a rat the size of a small cat skittered past us.

“I thought you had connections,” I said, keeping my voice low.

“I have connections, but I’m not a fucking god. Something’s up.”

We passed a tavern, where large men and slatterns spilled out onto the boardwalk. From inside came urgent thumping, and what sounded like a herd of druffalo keeping time with a fiddle and drum. The laughter set my teeth on edge, which wasn’t helped by the catcalls and lip-smacking sent after us by three of the burly fellows holding up the wall.

“Don’t say anything,” Iova said. “Don’t respond at all.”

“I wasn’t planning on doing so,” I replied through clenched teeth.

“Hey, knife-ear wenches, want to come sit on my lap?” another called.

Then we rounded a corner, hurried along for a bit and turned into an alley, straight into the tallest man I’d seen. Ever.

He must’ve stood nearly seven feet tall, but that wasn’t the only thing that made me stagger back. The man sported horns—wide, back-swept horns, and he was not alone. Another fellow joined him, this one holding a torch, and the light limned their faces in flickering shadows.

“Ah, you saved us the trouble,” the first one said to Iova. “We were about to come and find you.”

She pulled me behind her and we began to back away from the pair.

“Thinking of running, little mouse?” the Qunari said as he began to approach.

“Run!” Iova cried, fumbling for something under her cloak.

My feet didn’t want to obey her command, and I half stumbled against debris then found myself pressed against a wall.

Then she lifted a tube to her lips, blew, and the big male cursed, stepped back into his friend. Iova dragged me back with her, even as the male with the torch swung around the other. That was about as much as I saw before I turned tail.

“Just go!” Iova shrieked, and this time I did exactly what she told me to.

I pelted blindly down the road, between the warehouses, past stacks of crates. My boots came down in oily puddles but still I kept going, though my breath wheezed painfully. Once I trod on something slick, and I went sprawling through the muck, but the deep-rooted fear of that giant horned figure had me scrambling to my feet and ignoring the pain in my wrist and hip.

Only once I’d reached the market, did I stop, bent over and nearly throwing up from the shooting fire in my side. The folks who were still about—the market never truly slept—gave me a hairy eyeball or two for my bedraggled appearance and clearly distressed state, but no one stopped to inquire whether I needed help. Very few in a city would bestir themselves for others who were in need.

And I was a mess, completely covered in noisome muck that smelled somewhere between rotten fish and druffalo shit. My gorge rose every time I got a whiff of myself. Of Iova there was no sign, and I was torn: Did I go home as she’d instructed, or should I go back to find her? Then again? What could I do if she had been captured? Nothing. And she sure as hell wouldn’t want me to go to the city guard with wild stories about Qunari in the city. Who’d believe me, in any case?

I tried to imagine who one of the city guard would respond if I went to them with a wild story of oxmen gadding about, and the idea became even more ludicrous no matter how I spun it in my head.

Once I was certain my legs wouldn’t give from beneath me, and I’d washed the worst of the grime off me at one of the public fountains, I hobbled the rest of the way to the tenement. What else could I do? My imagination was rife with all sorts of awful things. What would I do now? Especially if Iova never came back?

Our room was awful and dank without her, so I waited. Washed myself properly this time with warm water and soap, and put my clothing in a bucket to soak. I fretted, even sobbed a bit, and then went to go lie down on the bed. I was shivering with cold by then.

Once I even got up, with the intention of knocking on Essie’s door, but I stopped myself on the landing, turned around and went back to bed. Essie was home; I could hear her humming to herself as she no doubt mended her clothes. Every once in a while, she’d get up, and she’d move about. If I knocked on her door and she turned me away, I don’t think I could endure that.

Somehow, I dozed off, because the next I knew, someone jiggled the door handle. “Oi! Ri, open up, it’s me!”

Iova!

I nearly cried out, so great was my relief as I flew over to let Iova in.

She was in a thoroughly bedraggled state herself, with fresh lacerations on her wrists and a darkening bruise on her temple where the skin was abraded.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Does it look like I’m all right?” She started stripping. “I need hot water. Go fetch me some from the kitchen and be quick about it.”

I did exactly as she bade me to, my hands trembling as I nearly broken my neck going downstairs with the bucket, so great was my haste.

Against all odds, she’d escaped the altercation. I owed her my life. My vision blurred with tears that I dashed away angrily while I waited for the water to trickle out of the urn. This late (or early, it depended) there was fortunately no one else about. Just one lamp lit up the kitchen, and the shadows pooled like ink. I never liked going into darkened rooms on my own, and I only realised that in my need to bring Iova her hot water, I’d overcome that fear.

Careful not to slop water on the floors—our landlady would have conniptions—I made my way back upstairs.

Iova was examining herself in our cracked looking glass once I slipped into our room.

“How did you manage?” I asked her.

She flashed me a wry grin. “Demon’s quim paste. Let’s just say it’s an old family recipe that’s gotten handed down that’s proved in handy in a tight spot. Nearly always fatal but works much faster on oxmen for some reason than anyone else. Things got a bit messy, but let’s just say we’re two fewer Qunari in Denerim after tonight.”

I gave a low whistle. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“Practice,” she said a bit too smugly then winced as she dabbed at a spreading bruise on her ribs. “Of course they didn’t quite give up without a fight, and I had to put a bit more of the tincture into them before they stopped nipping at my heels.”

Despite her bravado, Iova hadn’t come away unscathed, and I learned more than I wanted to know about stitching wounds that night.

“What were they doing here?” I asked her later, when we shared a pipe of elfroot.

Iova gave me a heavy-lidded glance. “They’re a complication.”

“I can see that,” I said a bit tartly. “But they were looking for _you_ , weren’t they?”

“How perceptive of you.” She blew out a plume of smoke through a tight smile.

When no further answer was forthcoming, I asked, “You’re not going to tell me yet, are you?”

“You’re learning quickly.” She flashed me one of those grins that made my stomach flop. “All in good time, ladybird.”

I let the matter drop there, and for days after, our lives were nearly perfect. There was no mention of any Qunari corpses turned up in an alley, so I didn't make any enquiries. As it was, we had enough going on with all Iova’s other schemes.

When most of our tasks were done, Iova would buy us a fine red and some fresh pies in the afternoons, and we’d sit at the docks, drinking directly from the bottle while the gulls wheeled about our faces, begging for scraps. Our feet would dangle above the restless, lapping water, and we’d share wine-stained kisses.

She had a way of looking _into_ me, seeing my all, and I was drunk with my passion for her.

Dimly, some sensible voice warned, that this was all going too fast, too crazy, but my chains had been snapped and I was rushing headlong into something fantastic, unpredictable and, yes, more than just a little bit _dangerous._ We were immortal. The world lay at our feet. It didn’t seem as if anything could go wrong.

Of course all fairy tales have a habit of hitting further sour notes, and my life was no different. Denil had come round late, skipping pebbles at our shutters so that we had to tip-toe downstairs to let him in without our landlady being any the wiser (she wasn’t fond of the idea of “gentleman callers”—her words, not ours).

Denil looked like he’d been sleeping rough, and we helped clean him up as best we could and bedded him down on a pallet made up from a folded-up cloak. Outside the rain was hammering; it was most certainly not a night to be without shelter.

“Where’ve you been?” I asked him. “I was so worried about you.”

He squeezed some of the water out of his hair. “Here and there.”

“Have you been round to work?”

“I heard all about what happened.”

“You not going back either?”

He shook his head.

“You’re better off without those shems holding power over you,” Iova said.

“And when we starve?” I asked her, somewhat annoyed by her continued confidence in her uprising.

“You won’t.”

“Um.” I gestured at Denil, who looked like he’d lost a fair amount of weight too.

“He’s here now,” she said simply.

“I can speak for myself,” Denil snapped. “Besides, I knew what I was getting’ myself into when I signed up.”

“Which is _what_ , exactly?” I asked. “Creeping in looking like a drowned gutter rat?”

Denil turned to Iova. “I made contact with our people in Amaranthine. Things are in place, and I’ve brought through more goods to the warehouse.”

He’d been all the way to Amaranthine and back? Denil, who had often bragged to me about how attached he was to Denerim, despite all the shitty things the shems did to our people?

“Good," Iova said, then turned to me. “Tomorrow you’ll go with Denil. I need you to know where the location is, and I want you to know at least three routes in and out that you can vary.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“You’ll earn your keep, of course, ma lath.” She delivered the last two words with a saucy wink that didn’t quite dispel the sense of unease that had crept into my breast.

I despised that there was something afoot that I wasn’t fully privy to, that Denil was, and perhaps had been for all these years without me knowing. That he’d lied to me. Or perhaps purposefully withheld information. That wasn’t the same as lying, was it?

That night I struggled to sleep.

It wasn’t just that I was aware of the third person in our room, whose breathing was unfamiliar, and whose scent had subtly shifted the essence of our space with his maleness. It was the first sense that I had that perhaps I was merely a means to an end, a puzzle piece in the intricate game Iova was playing.

“You’ve such a pretty face,” she’d tell me often. “Butter wouldn’t melt in that mouth. The shems wouldn’t suspect a thing.”

Now I was the one beginning to unlock a bigger picture, and I wasn’t sure whether I liked what I was seeing.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ria accompanies Denil on a dangerous mission, and she realises just what great risks she's taking on Iova's behalf.

“What exactly are we doing here?” I asked Denil as we tried to look casual. Which would have been fine had we been making a show of perusing wares at one of the markets, but was not so easy to pull off near one of the city guard barracks.

None of our people had any business here, so far as I could see. This quarter was nearly exclusively reserved for shemlen, with its fancy half-timbered homes—some of which even had little gardens out front.

And here we were, loitering by a stately oak, a half dozen or so feet from one of the last places in Denerim I’d wished to see. My basket with its contents was heavy, and whatever it was that I carried set my teeth on edge. I swore I felt heat radiating from it.

“Be careful with that,” was all Iova had told me. Like I'd needed reminding.

Denil leaned against the tree as if he had every right to, while I tried not to hunch my shoulders. We were waiting. At noon the guards would go inside for lunch. There’d be a moment or two where no one would stand at the front door. Denil would grab the basket and place it. And then we’d make tracks. The plan was that simple, apparently.

Only nothing was ever simple.

The street was busy: People made deliveries; people coming and going in carriages, on horseback. Graceful, well-off women walking in gaggles, arms interlinked while they spoke – not a care in the world. It was another life here, one in which we didn’t belong, and we were being stared at.

“This is not going to work,” I said to Denil through clenched teeth. I made to go but he placed a firm hand on my shoulder.

“Wait.”

“Oi, what you two doing here?” The speaker was human, male. About our age, but I didn’t like him or his two friends. Their clothing was so clean—unpatched hose, velvet doublets. They had that plump, washed look of the type who never picked up after themselves.

Even as Denil turned to face them, I melted away, diagonally across the street, my heart in my throat.

There was a yell, and a thump, and I didn’t need to turn around to see whether Denil had swung first. The scuffle turned ugly quickly. The guards at the door focused on the altercation rather than me as I hurried to the appointed spot in the side street. The need to get rid of the basket trumped me running away.

“By any means necessary,” Iova had told us. Sure. Right. My mouth had gone dry.

Yet this wasn’t what I’d had in mind, and I silently cursed Iova's name as I hurried down to where the foundations were exposed and to where one of our people had etched the glyph that told me where the stonework had been loosened.

Damn you, Denil. Always so quick with his fists. I prayed to the Maker that he’d be fine, that he’d somehow slip from their grasp even as I removed the bundle from the basket and set it in the niche with shaking hands.

The fabric-wrapped shape was warm to the touch, and even that brief contact made me wish I could go wash myself clean. The moment I replaced the loose plaster, I wiped my hands reflexively on my skirts then turned and hurried in the direction opposite to where Denil was.

 _Don’t look, don’t look_ , I berated myself.

But I was six paces down the road when I stopped, turned.

And wished I hadn’t.

Perhaps at the distance, the scene didn’t seem quite real. But the blood was red enough. Too much blood. On Denil. And the way he lay boneless, on the ground, while they kicked him, said all I needed to know.

“You get out there as fast you can,” Iova had told me. “No matter what. Denil will leave you behind and he expects the same of you if things go tits up.” I’d laughed at the time, shared a pained grimace with Denil.

This had been an hour or two ago, a lifetime ago, the way it felt, and not understood until now.

“Hey! Knife-ear!” a man shouted.

I gave a little shriek and managed to step out of the way as a carriage clattered by.

As it was, the beast’s shoulder thumped me so that I staggered, and that was all motivation I needed to start running.

None of this could be true, could it? I ran, fearing that I’d hear “Hey, that’s her, the other knife-ear!” behind me, but those words never came. So I ran and ran, blindly, until I couldn’t anymore. I had a stitch in my side that had me staggering, so I slumped against a wall and pretty much sank to my knees, not caring whether anyone saw me.

I fully expected rough human hands to close on my shoulder, but none came, and gradually I gained control of my breathing and some of the pain subsided. My clothes clung wetly to me, at my armpits, on my back, and trickles of sweat ran down my forehead.

 _Denil_. I bit my knuckles hard to stop myself from crying out. The pain in my gut had nothing to do with my running now. 

Over and over I kept seeing his too-still, pale form jerking with each kick. The particular sound boots made thudding into unresisting flesh. I squeezed my eyes shut hard, but couldn’t drive that vision from my mind.

“Gotta go back,” I muttered, rising as I straightened my clothing and took my bearings.

I was near the docks. How I’d managed that, Maker alone knew. Dusk. Gulls wheeled above, their gulping cries making the hairs on my nape rise. The sky had turned the colour of pomegranate, and a chill wind was blowing in off the water that made the rigging rattle, little waves slapping against the hulls.

Not so long ago, I’d sat near here, with Iova, and we’d had wine.

Now I was empty, my stomach hollowed out, yet filled with the horror of what I’d witnessed. Somehow everything was spoilt, just like fruit dropped in the mud and crushed by someone’s boot.

Here on the docks, I drew few glances, for which I was grateful. I was just another waif, a bit frayed about the edges, and I tried to summon the tatters of my courage so I could return to Iova. No tears, I told myself. No tears at all. Denil knew what he was getting himself into.

The question was, did I?

So I started back to the tenement, my shawl pulled over my shoulders, and I tried to straighten my back, tried to walk as if I had every business to be here. Even if the odd tear blurred my vision.

Yet I did not expect the strong hand that gripped my shoulder and the strength with which the man guided me into a side alley. Before I could so much as utter a screech, a hand was clamped over my mouth and I felt myself pressed against his lean frame.

The way he held me, I couldn’t see who he was, but I could feel the hard edges of his armour hidden by a dark grey cloak.

“I’m going to let go of you now, and you’re going to promise me that you’re not going to scream,” he said. “Do we have an understanding?” He spoke with a strange, lilting accent I couldn't quite place.

My heart felt as if it would explode from the fear, but I nodded agreement, and relaxed as he let go of me and turned me around to face him. Surely if he’d meant me ill, he’d have slipped me a new smile across my throat by now?

I found myself face to face with that strange elf with the green facial tattoos that spread across his forehead like a tree—the one who’d interrupted Iova’s meeting not so long ago. Up close, I was reminded of how much taller he was than the elves I was used to—easily towering over even the average human, and I flinched from his unrelenting amber gaze. He had eyes like a wolf, and the way he stared at me made me want to drop to the ground at his feet.

“What do you w-w-want?” I stammered.

“Where did you plant it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The rune stone. Where did that bitch have you plant it?”

Oh. I dared to look him in the eye. I dared to say, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He shook me then, hard enough for my teeth to rattle in my head. “Ma harel! Don’t play games with me, little shadow.”

A stronger woman would have maintained her composure. I wasn’t that woman, and to my eternal shame, began to sob—a heady mixture of terror, sorrow and the stress of the situation.

I cried like I hadn’t in years, and the strange elf held me awkwardly by my arms, and then ended up sitting me down on a pile of old crates.

“Hush now,” he said, patting at my shoulder, with some sympathy creeping in beneath the steel. 

I scrubbed at my face, hating that he saw me wracked by so much emotion, yet every time I thought I was done, fresh sobs hiccoughed from me until I feared I would throw up.

“He’s dead,” I said.

“That lad you were with?”

I nodded.

“You’re going to wind up just like him if you continue to allow that shadow-spawn to mislead you.”

I paused, glared at him. “She’s my lover.”

“That may be the case, but she’s like those widow spiders that suck their mates dry and discard their dried-up husks when she’s through with you.”

“She took me in when no one else would.”

“Aye, that may be the case, but trust me, you’re better off on the streets than nuzzling at her poisoned teat.”

My hand moved faster than good sense, and I slapped him through the face before I could think better of it.

The elf jerked back, hand raised to his cheek and his hood askew to reveal a queue of white hair and shaved sides. The look in his eyes was mingled shock and surprise, tinged with a feral anger that made me regret my hasty action immediately.

“You deserved that!” I snapped at him before I lost my nerve.

The elf moved so quickly he blurred, and he gripped both my wrists hard enough that the small bones ground against each other. “No man or woman has raised their hand to me like that in centuries, quickling. If you knew—” Then he evidently thought better of what he wanted to say, and thrust me from him as he rose.

“Where did you plant the rune stone? I won’t ask again.”

“I shan’t tell you!” I spat even as I scrambled to my feet.

“You are a pawn,” he said. “One tiny little pawn that’s helping to tip this world over the brink of disaster.” Then he shook his head, as if disbelieving the entire situation. “I don’t know why I bother. I should let it all end. Damn you, Ilvin.” With that he turned and left, and didn’t even look over his shoulder. The last I saw of him was the grey cloak vanishing around the corner.

Most of the strength fled from my limbs round about that time, and I sagged against the grimy wall, struggling to prop myself up in the gloomy alleyway. I waited until my heart stopped trying to beat its way out of my chest, and then made my way back to the tenement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoying this fic? Love my writing? Do check out my original fiction at https://www.amazon.com/Nerine-Dorman/e/B004QXPOFS


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Denil's death doesn't bother Iova since it's for her beloved cause, and Ri can't see a way out of the mess she's in now.

Iova wasn’t home when I got back and let myself into our room. A light was shining under Essie’s door, but I’d slunk past like a scalded cat for fear of letting her know I was back on my own. She no doubt heard my key in the lock, and the quiet snick as I closed the door behind me. Why should I care what a shem thought anyways? I was all cried out, sitting in the darkened room that smelled of expensive musk and slightly of damp, and I shouldn’t be alone.

And Denil shouldn’t be lying dead, dumped in a pauper’s grave no doubt, like so much meat.

And that strange elf with the burning amber eyes and his dire warnings.

I still felt his imprint of his grip on my arms, and when I lit the lamp and rolled up my sleeves, I could see the first faint hints of bruising where his fingers had pressed into my skin.

Then the rain started hammering down outside, and I maintained vigil awhile, held company by that brave little flame that pushed back the darkness.

The key rattled in the lock just as my eyes were growing heavy, and Iova barged in dripping and bringing the smell of mud and wet wool.

“Ah, how did it—” She froze as she took in my dishevelled state. “That bad, huh?”

“Denil’s d-d—” I couldn’t bring myself to finish the word. _Dead_.

Iova’s face hardened, became mask like. “Oh.” She shut the door firmly and hung up her cape.

“Oh. _Oh?_ Is that all you’re going to say?” I shoved myself up against the wall. “Some shemlen dogs beat him to death in the street, and all you can say is ‘oh’?”

She was on top of me faster than I could respond, and had me pinned to the wall so hard, so suddenly that my breath left my lungs in a painful whoosh.

“Don’t you presume to tell me what I’m feeling, girl.” Her lips grazed my ear, her voice splinter sharp. “Just because I’m not sitting here like the Wreck of The Halryh pinned to the rocks, doesn’t mean that I don’t feel, and that I don’t feel deeply.”

Without warning, she let go, and I fell in a boneless heap on the ground, watching as she went to the bed and started removing her clothing, her back to me.

“Did you place the package as I instructed?”

I massaged at my throat. “Yes.”

“Did anyone see you?”

“I… I wasn’t pursued.”

“Mmm. Then you should probably lie low for a bit. I’ll have a few other errands for you that won’t see you out in the public eye so much.”

I sucked in a breath, dreading what I must still tell her. “That elf. The one that interrupted your meeting at the warehouse. He caught me, threatened me.”

Iova halted, half-turned to me. “You didn’t tell him anything, did you?”

I shook my head.

“Good. If he knew what was good for our cause, he’d side with us. You stay away from him. He’s in cahoots with the erstwhile Inquisitor. They’re nothing but trouble.”

“What… What are we really doing?” I asked. “Those runes.”

“There’s going to be a nice little explosion during the early hours of the morning,” Iova said.

It took a moment for the truth to register. “You mean, you’ve had me planting something that’s going to—”

“Boom! Yes! Explode!” Iova gave a dry bark of laughter. “We’re going to make Denerim ungovernable. Just like other members of our little rebellion are going to go to work in the rest of Thedas. Justice, Ri, we’re getting justice for the centuries that they’ve kicked elves like Denil to death in the dust.”

Her face was twisted into a mad leer, and I realised then that I didn’t really know her at all, and that I’d not just stepped into deep waters where I couldn’t see the bottom, I had sunk way over my head. Problem was, I could see no way out.

* * * *

For a fortnight, Iova had me running messages between our tenement and a number of hole-in-the-wall locations in the city. She was all sweetness and beguilement, hiding the hardness she’d shown me the night I came home after Denil’s death.

“I need you, Ri,” she’d said. “I can’t do this alone.” Tears had shone in her eyes. “You have no idea what else the shems have planned. The empress burned down an alienage. An entire alienage. How many hundreds of our people died, were without homes? Do you think they care about us? Orlais, Ferelden, the Free Marches… It’s all the same.”

So I stayed.

And I closed my eyes to the buildings that went up in flames in the humans’ quarters, and did what my mistress bid. It was easier that way. She gave me purpose, certainty I wouldn’t otherwise have possessed. Besides, she promised me that we’d make them pay for what happened to Denil ten times over, and it was easy for me to follow orders when I didn’t confront the actual results of my handiwork and only glimpsed the glow of flames painting the skyline late at night.

Then one evening I came home to find Iova and Essie deep in conversation on the landing. I don’t know what shocked me more: that Essie seemed at ease or that Iova actually deigned to have what appeared to have a civil discussion with her.

“Ah, there you are,” Iova said and smiled.

I paused on the corner of the stairs, pretty sure my open mouth must be attracting flies. “I—”

“Oh, it’s quite all right,” Essie said, smiling. “I’d thought it time we mend bridges.” Her expression was so sincere and warm, my heart stuttered nearly painfully.

Instantly suspicious, I narrowed my eyes at Iova. “What’s going on?”

My lover was the picture of wide-eyed innocence. “Why so doubtful, my little partridge?”

“Nothing,” I muttered, and shook my head, before I tried to brush past the both of them.

Iova’s hand shot out and she gripped my upper arm firmly. “Not so fast. We have things to discuss.”

“Are you certain?” I asked.

“Please, Ri,” Essie said. “We need to talk.”

“I don’t think so.” I tried to pull free.

“Talk, Ria,” Iova said in a way that I couldn’t disobey.

“Fine.” I stood on the step above Iova, and folded my arms over my chest. “Talk.”

Essie puffed out a breath and tucked a brown ringlet behind her ear. “Right. Iova has asked if we can find employment for you.”

“What?” I rounded on Iova, who gifted me with such a cat-eyed smile I immediately snapped shut my mouth. She was up to something, and either I could play along or I could cause a scene. I opted for the former. “All right.” I turned to Essie.

“I’m doing you a favour,” she continued. “To show that I bear you no ill will, especially since it was my fault about what happened with Egan. I want to make it _right_ , Ri.” Essie’s eyes were suspiciously bright.

I inclined my head. “What, so I’ve got my old job back now? What if I don’t want to be up to my elbows in sodding dirty dishwater. Put the knife-ear in the back so the customers don’t know whether she’s spitting in their ale.”

Iova pinched me. Hard. And I bit the inside of my cheek to suppress the yelp.

“You know that’s not true,” Essie said. “At least just hear me out.”

“Right.”

“Now you know my ma is an assistant to the cook there at the palace. They’re short of servants, and she said she could arrange a position for you there. The king is anxious to give positions especially to your people of late, to improve your lot—”

“So I’m a charity case? Is that it?”

This time Iova’s nail bit into my skin, and I was certain she’d drawn blood.

“You’re not making it easy for me!” Essie cried. Tears slipped down.

An old, long-buried pain surfaced, of how things used to be between me and my erstwhile best friend, and my shame crept up my cheeks. “Fine.” I let out a deep sigh. “I’ll take the job.”

I don’t know what made me feel more ill—the fact that I was going to be scurrying around at humans’ beck and call in the bloody palace or Iova’s triumphant grin the moment Essie’s back was turned.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Does Ria want more blood on her hands? Even if it's shemlen blood?

“And if I get caught?” I glared at Iova, who stood on the other side of the bed, glaring right back at me, arms akimbo.

The package lay on our bed, and I swear I could feel the buzz of the magic of the cloth-wrapped rune stone from where I stood.

“You won’t get caught. You’ve been there, what, two weeks already? They know your face. They trust you.”

“The bloody mages' delegation from Cumberland will be there. _Mages_ , Iova. This _thing_ ”—I pointed at the offending item—“in case you haven’t noticed, is buzzing with so much power even _I_ can feel it. What makes you think I’ll be able to sneak it in? And then plant it in the royal wing?”

“You won’t get bloody caught. They’ll all be so busy eating and drinking and carousing that you’ll be able to be in and out before anyone misses you.”

“You’re so bloody sure, but you’re not the one who’s taking these risks.”

She coloured then jabbed a finger at me. “You forget who has to keep all the threads together. You don’t know even the half of what it is that I do for the cause, how much I have suffered. How much I’ve _lost_.” This last word came out in a sob as she sank down on her knees and buried her face in the covers.

My guilt twisted its coils in my stomach, and my anger and fear drained away. I was being such an ungrateful wretch, making this all about me. I rushed around the bed, crouched next to Iova and laid my hand on her shoulder.

She shook with each sob, her muscles so tight beneath the skin it was almost as if I had reached out to touch someone carved from stone.

“I’m sorry, all right. I spoke in haste,” I said.

Iova raised herself and twisted to look at me, her eyes wet with tears. “You really have no idea.” She wiped at her face with a sleeve but then embraced me. “I need your help now more than ever, Ri. Please don’t let me down. We’re doing something important, for _our_ people. We can’t afford to fail.”

“But at what cost, love?” I asked, resting my head against her shoulder.

“Whatever it takes.” She raised herself, reached out across the blankets and snagged the package, which she pressed into my hand. “Please, Ri, this is all I ask of you. This opportunity to strike in the heart of the humans’ dominion at a time when we can aim a blow that will bring them to their knees.”

“People will die.” Could I do this? Could I really be an instrument of wholesale destruction?

“And you don’t think our own people haven’t bled and suffered? Slavers reach even as far as here in southern Thedas, and do you think that human king bestirs himself to do anything about it? Oh, he pays lip service to our so-called ‘equal rights’ by tearing down the alienage walls here in Denerim, but do you see him petitioning for the same in Val Royeaux?”

I had no words to gainsay her, and my fingers of their own volition curled about the package. Even through the layers of fabric, it was warm, humming.

Was I prepared to die for my people?

Yet Iova’s green eyes seemed to see right into my soul. The longer she held my gaze, the more I realised that she was right and my worries fled from me.

“Good girl,” she murmured, and kissed me on my forehead. “You do what we discussed, and when you come back, we can take a little trip. Perhaps up to the Free Marches for a bit. I have some contacts there who’ll put us up for a while.”

My world felt a little strange and blurry around the edges; I couldn’t wait to be away, to do her bidding.

* * * *

The palace was ablaze with candles and lamps, I couldn’t help but think that this must’ve cost a small fortune. The scent of beeswax mingled with the expensive musk and attar of roses favoured by the guests who milled about in the banqueting hall. Women with sleeves so voluminous, at least three or four dresses could be made from one gathered in knots on the edges of the dance floor while couples whirled gracefully to the strains of some fancy Orlesian string quartet.

My work was simple: Move between the wine cellar and the festivities, making sure that all the esteemed guests were never thirsty. This was the sort of work I was accustomed to, as I slipped between bodies with my tray aloft. Good little knife-ear, I kept my eyes downcast and my attitude suitably demure.

The king and queen were present, seated on a dais at the top end of the hall. I couldn’t decide whether the royal pair was bored or miserable, or a combination of both. It was in the way their smiles didn’t quite reach their eyes, when they greeted courtiers, and the not-so-subtle way they leaned apart from each other.

So that was the man who’d loved the Hero of Ferelden. I tried and failed to imagine what it must feel like to have the love of one’s life sacrifice themselves in order to save an entire world. Oh, how it must bother some shemlen that the Hero had been an elf.

King Alistair, however, was rather ruggedly handsome, I had to agree. Not my type, obviously, and despite the stories of his exploits, there was a fineness to his features I’d not expected from a human male. Queen Anora, on the other hand, was classically beautiful, for a shemlen, not that I would admit to anyone present that I was evaluating her. Her fine-spun gold hair was pulled back from her face and a plain silver circlet with a white stone rested upon her brow. Pale porcelain complexion, yet her cheeks were rosy. Peaches-and-cream complexion, I’d heard my mum call it in the past. Nicely off set by the dark green of her gown. A wealth of rich fabric.

But I was not here to gawk at the royals.

The bundle I was to plant was hot and heavy in the pocket of my skirts, buzzing where it pressed against my hip. I hated carrying the thing, kept glancing over my shoulder in case anyone with a scrap of sensitivity to magic might call me out. College of bleeding Magi were here. So far as I could see, about half a dozen robed shemlen had been seated in an alcove to the right of the royal couple. For safety’s sake, I gave them as wide a berth as possible, though after an hour or two, I figured I needn’t have worried, because my drab grey kirtle rendered me nigh on invisible to nearly everyone who wasn’t immediately grasping for a refill.

Iova had assured me that no one would detect the device, that I’d have enough time to do what had to be done then get out of this bleeding palace stuffed to the rafters with those who’d never slept rough a single night of their lives.

What must it be like to live like this? To have every need met in easy privilege?

I’d been here such a short while, and I couldn’t fathom the differences in our ways of life.

A gong sounded, the musicians stopped playing, and a muttering quiet settled on those gathered. Some shemlen noble came to stand by the dais, and all faces were turned in his direction. This was my cue to vanish. So far as the staff had been briefed, the official discourse (such as it was for such an event) would not take long, but it would give me approximately half an hour or so to complete my task.

No one looked askance at an elf carrying a covered tray upstairs to the residential wing of the castle. This was the perfect ruse so far as I could surmise. The two bored-looking guards barely glanced in my direction as I went up the stairs, and I kept my tread on the worn stone light as I ascended. No need to draw any further attention to myself. Yet each footstep seemed to echo, so far as I was concerned, and I had an awful crawly feeling at the back of my neck as if _someone_ was all too aware that I was entering an area I was not meant to be in.

Granted, I’d had errands in the royal wing a few times, fetching laundry, delivering refreshments, dusting, that sort of thing, and usually then, the place had a buzz of life to it. Now, it was like a tomb—not that I’d been inside any ruins ever, but I’d certainly read enough Varric Tethras stories to have the image stuck in my head.

 _Turn left on the landing, second passage to your left, then third door to your right_.

Those were my instructions, and I followed them to the letter. The sooner I rid myself of the package, the better. Iova had promised me we could go out for drinks later so I could calm my nerves. Except the city would be in uproar, wouldn’t it? The king’s residence would be on fire, and I’d be sitting in a tavern somewhere with my lover, getting nug faced on cheap red wine. Serves the shemlen right, right?

Right.

The door opened at the slightest touch, the hinges so well oiled they barely made a whisper. Made sense, when I realised which suite of rooms I’d just entered. The scent of elfroot salve and embrium were strong here, underpinned with lavender, and the walls had been painted a fetching shade of sky blue, complete with fluffy white clouds and soaring dragons.

A child’s space.

Prince Ewan.

My heart shuddered to a stop, and I stood numb, frozen but two paces into the boy’s room. He’d been born but six months before, a difficult pregnancy, if the rumours were to be believed. The queen had been bedridden during the last two months, and even so, the child had been born early, and small. But the Theirin line was secured. That was what mattered to the shemlen.

Understanding crashed in. After tonight, there would be no continuation of the Theirin line, and I would be the instrument of the atrocity.

 _Why should this be different?_ I could hear Iova ask. _He’s only going to grow up and treat our people the way his have always walked all over ours_.

A child. Only a child.

He had the same light blond hair as his mother, and lay on his stomach, eyes closed. His thumb had popped out of his mouth, and those tiny lips still made gentle sucking motions. Iova might see the monster he might still become, but all I saw was an innocent child, and I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t leave that infernal fire rune-spelled device so that it would end this life.

I bit hard on my knuckles, with the realisation that I’d reached a turning point. Everything that we’d fought for so far, all our hard-won victories…

The door opened behind me and I turned, startled nearly out of my skin.

“Can I help you?” It was the child’s nursemaid.

I gripped the tray I still held and shook my head. “I think I was given the wrong directions.”

She held the door open for me. “Off with you then.” Her tone was light, as if my being here was of no more consequence than furniture that was out of place.

I scurried out, pathetically grateful that the decision had been taken out of my hands. Now, what to do with the incendiary device? I had a quarter of an hour at the most before the thing would be triggered. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to be splattered all over the castle walls.

As I rounded the corner, I did not, however, expect to run into a Qunari. I don’t know who was more surprised, me or him. My tray went flying in a cascade of crockery and silverware, taking with it all hope of stealth. I bounced off the solid mountain of grey muscle and fell against the wall, momentarily stunned.

Qunari in the royal quarters? Did Iova even know, or was this an unlucky coincidence?

There simply wasn’t time to speculate. Even as the big, grey bastard swiped at me with his wicked-looking dagger, I evaded the strike by slipping under his arm. Scratch that. Qunari daggers were more like fucking bloody swords compared to the weapons humans wielded. I feinted to the right but went left past the second bastard that came up behind him.

Harsh words in Qunlat followed me, but for now I had evaded capture.

I pelted down the passages and narrowly missed being tripped up by the bodies of the pair of guards I’d seen on the stairs earlier. Dumb shems hadn’t stood a chance. If I carried on, I’d hit the servants’ stairs at the other end of the corridor to my left. That’s if there weren’t damned Qunari invaders swarming through there by then. Music filtered up from the hall, and I hesitated on the landing, debating whether I should haul ass down there and sound the alarm. Would they even believe me?

But then six tall, grey-skinned forms sliced across the foot of the stairs, pretty much blocking me from my intention to do the right thing. I mean, the right thing… yeah. I was about to set an incendiary device in a child’s nursery and here I was wondering whether I should raise the alarm about a Qunari invasion.

So I made like a rabbit, and embarked on a mad dash to the servants’ stairs instead. Every time I rounded a corner, I fully expected to run into an oxman or one of the guards, but my luck was in. My breath rasped in my throat, and I hated that my footsteps sounded like a Maker-damned stampeding gurn. The door was ajar, and even as I yanked it fully open, I body slammed a frail elven woman coming the other way. We bounced off each other, and under any other circumstances I’d have found such a chance meeting comical, but there was nothing funny about the oxmen on the rampage in the palace.

“They’re on this floor,” I hissed at her.

“Etunash!” Her face contorted in anger then she gripped my upper arm. “Come. We don’t have much time then.”

I was so shocked by how she took charge and assumed I’d go with her, that I allowed her to guide me down the narrow, winding staircase. Our footsteps echoed too loudly in this confined space, and I had trouble enough keeping up. Only once we’d reached one of the sculleries near the basement, did she halt. Her breath wheezed alarmingly, and once she let go of my forearm, I saw how her left arm ended just above the elbow. Her coat was pinned back neatly.

“You’re not one of the guests,” I wondered.

She shook her head. “How astute.”

I had a chance to take stock of her then—a heart-shaped face, unhealthy pallor. No vallaslin, but she certainly swore like a Dalish warrior. Ghost-white hair cropped close to the skull and a faint, pale scar scoring her left cheek, just below the eye.

“We need to get out of the palace,” I told her. “I—” I couldn’t tell her about the incendiary rune, but I had a choice: either leave it in a location where it’d do the least amount of damage, or risk blowing myself to bits tossing it outside.

“You have Iova’s explosive fire rune. Yes. I know.”

I gaped at her.

“Why do you think I’m here tonight?”

“Who are you?”

“It doesn’t matter. Pass me the thing.” She held out her right hand.

For a moment I was tempted to evade her, but she carried herself as one who was accustomed to wielding power, and I found myself incapable of resisting. It was as if a green fire crackled in her eyes as she took the thing from me and seemingly without effort simply crumbled it to dust in her right hand. The cloth it had been wrapped in fluttered to the ground.

“Now, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave that hag. She’ll be the death of you.”

“How do you know I—”

The door to our right exploded off its hinges to reveal a Qunari who didn’t wait for us to invite her in as she leapt straight for us with her dual blades drawn. My mysterious rescuer shoved me hard into a pile of sacks, and for the present all I could concern myself with was becoming personally acquainted with the shallots that tumbled out as I fell.

Even as I turned, the other elf danced out of harm’s way. Her right hand crackled, and when she got under the rogue’s guard—she was that quick—she slapped the Qunari woman hard on the neck.

Immediately the woman stiffened, then fell to the ground convulsing as electricity arced.

“No time! Come!” The elven woman grabbed me by the collar of my dress and yanked me onto my feet and straight into a staggering run down the passage.

The clash of steel and shouting reached us as we flew through the servants’ quarters. Other elves and servants, like us, fled, and we followed the throng that pushed towards the service entrance. The guards who should’ve manned the gate sprawled in spreading slicks of blood but we didn’t stop. The mysterious elf had a death grip on me, and seemed to know where she was going, and that was fine by me. As it was, the city guard ignored us as they rushed to the royal palace. Alarm bells were ringing and with all the shouting, it was easy for us to remain hidden in the shadows while we made our way to the deserted back streets. Only then did we stop, both so winded that all we could do for a good few minutes was try to catch our breaths.

Eventually, when I no longer felt as though I was going to vomit up both my lungs, I turned to the woman. “What. Just. Happened?”

Her one gloved hand pressed over her eyes, she didn’t immediately respond. “Bad timing.”

“Did you have anything to do with that Qunari attack?”

She shook her head. “No. I was there to stop you. Not them.”

Remorse dug its nails in deep. “I couldn’t do it.”

“I’m glad.” The elf removed her hand and regarded me steadily. The rise and fall of her chest as she breathed was laboured, and only then did I notice how a dark stain bloomed on her left side.

“You’re hurt,” I said, somewhat unnecessarily.

“I’ve had worse.”

“We need to get you to someone who can help you.”

“I’ve got…friends.”

“Where are they?”

If we can get down to the docks, near the alienage. There’s an inn. The Red Hen.”

I groaned. The chances of us making it all the way from the palace to the docks while the city was turned upside down with guards and Qunari invaders… Yet the inn the elf suggested was closer than the tenement where I stayed with Iova, which was all the way across the Drakon.

“All right.” I was going to regret this. Good sense told me that we should part ways here, but the day I ran from Denil and left him to die in the dirt, as if he were no better than a dog, chewed at my conscience.

I could do this. For Denil. But then I was lying low for a while.

With my mysterious benefactor leaning heavily on me, I slung my left arm around her waist and wadded up some of her cloak in an attempt to put pressure on the injury.

“You’re going to bleed out before we get there,” I muttered as we began our limping way back.

“Better than dying in a ditch. I’ve had worse. Look in the pouch on my right. There are some potions. Enough to see me through till we get there.”

We paused in the shadow of a doorway while I fumbled about till I snagged the aforementioned potions. She was trembling so much I helped uncork three doses and lifted the bottles to her lips so she could down them.

“Gah!” She shuddered as she was done with the last.

I could smell the bitterness on her breath. Whatever that was, it must be vile.

“You all right?”

“For now.”

We resumed our halting progress, hugging shadowed doorways and ducking into alleys whenever guards came clattering past. From what light there was I could see sweat beading her brow, and her already pale countenance was fish-belly white. Ideally, she should find a place to wait while I went for assistance, but this wasn’t an ideal world, and if we stopped now, chances of us being uncovered like a pair of rats trying to escape a pack of terriers grew slimmer by the minute.

“Fen’Harel’s rebellion is just a distraction, you know,” she murmured.

“What do you know about it?” I asked.

“Enough that he’s keeping elves, humans, and yes, even the Qunari at each other’s throats while he puts the final parts of his plan into motion. A masterstroke, really.”

“He’s offering us freedom,” I hissed.

“So he can end this world.”

“So he can bring back our glorious past, make us great again and give back everything that the shemlen stole from us.” This argument was going nowhere.

Two guardsmen clattered past just then, and we shank further back into the space we’d found behind stacks of old crates. For a few heartbeats, I was conscious only of our heartbeats.

“Can you move?” I asked the woman.

She offered a sharp nod and groaned a little as I helped her to her feet.

We hobbled along, going from shadow to shadow.

“We need to stand together during this time,” the woman said to me.

“Save your breath,” I snapped.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ria discovers that her unlikely rescuer has a far more illustrious past than she guessed.

We had precious little to say to each other for the rest of the journey to the one-armed elf’s base of operations. Whether I’d pissed her off or if she was starting to weaken further, I had no way of telling, save that her words were reduced to monosyllables as she directed me along our route.

I didn’t linger, merely made sure that she stood on the tavern’s threshold before I did my best impression of melting into the shadows. Not that I was as good as Denil used to be when it came to vanishing, but I’d like to think I’d learnt a thing or two since Iova took me under her wing.

And those lessons stood me in good stead now, as I snucked back to my tenement. People were shouting their alarm closer to the palace, where the red-orange glow of fire licked at the sky. Whatever was burning, had a lot of fuel to add to the inferno. I hoped the prince was all right.

Now for the hard part: confronting Iova with my failure. I couldn’t tell her about the mysterious elven woman, I was certain. Yet she’d pry the information out of me, and I didn’t relish the inevitable bollocksing I’d receive.

Like a nug sneaking past a dog, I crept up the stairs, hating the way that even the slightest misstep made the planks squeak. Even if I lied and told her that the Qunari took the rune from me, she’d want to know why it hadn’t exploded. Pointing out that something had caught fire after all wouldn’t help. She’d _know_. And I was in so much shit.

Except once I unlocked the door and slunk into our shared room, Iova wasn’t there. I didn’t know whether I should breathe a sigh of relief or kick the door jamb out of pure frustration. Waiting for Iova to spill her ire was almost worse than accepting the full brunt of it.

I went over to the window, where I lifted the ratty curtain so that I could peer outside. Nothing. In my head, I could hear my mother nagging at me, asking why it was that I still stayed with Iova. I wasn’t stupid. As this rebellion had grown, so her attention had become fixated on her machinations, wherein I was merely a playing piece. A card to be dealt or cast away if necessary. Then why stay? Why was it so difficult for me to leave?

A sense of purpose. That’s what it was. Back when I’d been little more than a tavern wench, my days had flown into each other, an inexorable river that was running out to the sea, where it would be washed away in the salt. With Iova, there was no telling what would happen next. Maker’s breath, there was no way of even telling whether we’d all be alive come sunup. When I was with Iova or embarking on one of her tasks, the colours around me were brighter, the wine sweeter.

And yet.

I was damaging others as I was myself damaged, and this couldn’t go on indefinitely.

That sweet, innocent little boy might’ve lost his life tonight thanks to my actions. Sure, he was a shem, but he was just a kid. I hadn’t crossed that line yet where I could take the life of a child. The scary thing was, would that day come where I could take innocent lives? Up until now, I’d always believed the recipients of our justice to be deserving of their fates.

If we carried on the way we were, we’d eventually burn down the entire world, and I wasn’t sure I wanted that. No matter how badly the shems treated my people.

With nothing more to do other than wait, I cleaned myself up and pulled on my nightdress. I combed out my hair in front of the cracked mirror of the dresser, not sure that I even knew this serious-eyed waif who stared back with hollow eyes. I’d become a stranger to myself, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

Eventually, I curled up on the bed, and though I struggled at first to fall asleep, I must’ve drifted off because when the door slammed shut, I sat up like someone who’d been shocked with a bolt of electricity from a mage’s staff.

“You’re back!” I exclaimed.

A wild-eyed, dishevelled Iova glared at me from the doorway. “My, my, you’re looking all cosy.”

I shoved the blanket off and rose, taking only two steps before Iova’s icy countenance froze me in place. My stomach lurched in dismay, and I hugged myself.

“Care to tell me why the rune never detonated?”

I shook my head, my vision blurry all of a sudden. “I…” My words dried up on my tongue.

“Well? I’m waiting.”

“He’s just a little baby!” I whispered, not quite daring to meet her gaze. “How can you expect—”

“And what about the countless lives of our people, old, young, innocent or not, that have been ended thanks to the shemlen, and here you go out of your way to sabotage our plans.”

“There were Qunari,” I told her.

“Even better. You shouldn’t have let that stop you now.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to say more, but I had to find some way to defend myself, make things better. “There was an elven woman there. She took the rune from me.”

Iova’s hiss of indrawn breath had me open my eyes. “You let some stranger take the rune?”

“She saved my life. She said… She knew about you and the rune. That’s why she was there.”

“Who was she?”

“I…” And then, like a fool, I realised I’d never once bothered to ask that woman her name. “I don’t know. We didn’t have time to exchange any pleasantries, you know? We were running for our lives.”

“What did she look like?”

I swallowed hard, afraid of what was to come. “She was slightly taller than me. Incredibly pale, almost sickly looking.” The obvious then. “And she was missing her left hand. That’s all I can remember. A mage, because the rune turned to dust when she took it from me.”

A string of vile oaths slipped out of Iova’s mouth, and then before I even had a chance to duck out of the way, she struck me hard, with the flat of her hand across my face.

My world exploded in a white crack of pain, and I fetched up against the dresser. The skin of my cheek was numb and tingly, and I tasted iron.

“That was the former Inquisitor, you puling brat!”

“How was I to know?” I howled back. Tears blurred my vision, and I cursed myself for my weakness as I dabbed at the side of my mouth with my wrist.

Scarlet painted my skin, and I probed experimentally with my tongue against the inside of my lip where the skin had torn against my teeth.

I had fucked up. I knew that all too well, but it did not warrant being struck as if I were no more than a mangy cur out on Denerim’s streets.

“You didn’t have to hit me,” I added.

Iova had gone to stand by the window, leaning heavily on the sill. Judging by the heaviness of the rise and fall of her breathing, she struggled to calm herself.

“You’re an idiot. I shouldn’t have trusted this to you.” Her words pierced me right through to my heart.

“Who was she that she was so important to you?” I hated the coils of jealousy that stirred in my belly.

“She’s Ilvin fucking Lavellan, you addled hedge creeper! You should have killed her when you had her within your grasp. But then again, what did I expect? I should never have entrusted you with this task. You are spineless.”

“Oh.” Numb, I sat on the edge of the bed, still cradling my split lip and swallowing the blood that welled in my mouth. If I’d known, could I have killed the woman? I considered Ilvin’s steely determination to survive against all odds, and I knew I didn’t possess the wherewithal to end her life. After all, she’d survived the blast that had destroyed the Conclave. What could I do in the greater scheme of things?

The Inquisition meant very little to me. Oh, we’d heard all the stories that gradually grew into legends that the bards sang about, but it all happened so far away in Orlais and the far west of Ferelden. And the Inquisition itself had been disbanded this past year, no longer a threat to Fereldan sovereignty, or so the opinions went.

“What’s she doing here?” I regretted the question as soon as I uttered it, for Iova spun to face me.

“Why don’t you just shut up, all right? And do something useful and fetch me some hot water so I can clean myself up.”

Hating myself even more, I slunk out of our room to do Iova’s bidding. At least this way, she couldn’t see the hot tears that blinded me and ran down my cheeks.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dare Ria stop Iova's mad scheme? Things are about to get explosive in Denerim.

We lay low for the next two weeks while Denerim quieted down and the surviving Qunari who had launched their ill-fated attack on the palace were executed. Increased patrols courtesy of the city guard made it all but impossible to slink about after dark, in any case. During the day Iova sent me about on seemingly meaningless errands, fetching and carrying messages to others in her cell. I felt as if everyone could read my guilt as if it had been writ on my face, that they were all secretly mocking me the moment my back was turned.

Where Iova slept at night, I never knew, for when I came home during the late afternoons or early evenings, she was never around, and the bed was big and cold and empty without her. Not that we were in any way intimate anymore. She kept glancing about, as though distracted, and never quite made eye contact with me when we met up, which was usually downstairs in our tenement kitchen, when she came to give me my orders for the day.

Oh, I contemplated leaving. I even swallowed my pride to knock on Essie’s door, only to discover that she’d packed up and left, and I had no way of contacting her. The fact that she’d gone deepened the chasm that had opened in my heart. My last connection to my old life had slipped between my fingers.

I went so far as to visit my mother, but even then we had nothing to say to each other. Her world was circumscribed by the tidy confines of the apartment her lover had her keep. Her concerns were focused on her tapestries, on the outreach work that she did for the Chantry among the indigent. Her newfound religious fervour made me uncomfortable, conscious of how my mother had become part of the structure of the very world I sought to overthrow.

Next to her I was a pale, scrappy thing, with frayed clothing and not enough flesh on my bones. And loath as I was to admit it to the one who’d given birth to me, I was deeply ashamed of what I’d become – no more than a shadow, flitting about on the winds of another’s capricious whims.

So I stopped going to see my mother after my second visit. She couldn’t help me. I couldn’t even begin to unburden myself to her. My heart became cold and hard as autumn’s rains gave way to the icy storms of winter, and though the people of Denerim hunkered down I found some sort of release being out, exposed to the elements. As if the icy rain could ever wash the stain that had crept under my skin.

* * * *

It was early evening, and I was hurrying from the docks with a message for one of the cell members, when a tall, blond elf wearing a scrappy red dress stepped out of a doorway and barred my way.

“Hey you,” she said by way of greeting. Somehow, I _knew_. _Red Jenny._

Unlike so many of the city’s elves she didn’t have that pinched look about her I’d come to take for granted among my people.

I glared at her, my right hand already straying to the dagger I kept belted at my side. My fingers brushed air.

“Looking for this pointy bit?” She held my dagger out to me hilt first.

“What do you want?” I snapped as I snatched the dagger and backed off, the blade trained on her.

“Word is you’re running with a rough crowd, yeah? Begging for crumbs from an elfy-elf who thinks she’s the bee’s knockers.”

“What’s it to you?” A quick scan of my surroundings told me I was at the disadvantage here in the narrow quarters, and not visible from the main thoroughfare thanks to the crates stacked over most of the entrance. No one to see me get stabbed or worse.

“Let’s just say her ladyship is hoping you can be a friend.” The blond elf then let a small scrap of red fabric drop to the cobbles and then she offered me a smile with far too many teeth. “Don’t think too long, yeah? You know where to find us.” With that she brushed past me and went on out of the alleyway.

I stood for several heartbeats, putting two and two together, and getting five.

My fear was bright in my chest, constricting my lungs so that breathing occurred only thanks to supreme effort. I’d just been courted by the Red Jennies. Me, of all people. A nobody. Worse than a nobody. A nothing.

The Jennys were whispered about, and usually in terms of what they did to the nobility. Why should they care about me, though? I had no special skills to offer. Unless… For some reason my involvement with Iova was causing a point of concern for them. Which meant the division within my people over whether to rebel the way we were going about it was much more serious than I’d previously considered. My head hurt just thinking about it.

With a shudder, and a last glance over my shoulder, I hurried along. Now the very real fear gnawed at my heels that one of my fellows might’ve seen me speaking to the elf. Would a brief, casual encounter be construed as me turning traitor? And if I told Iova that a Red Jenny had approached me, what then? Or were they setting me up, pretending to have a Red Jenny approach me in order to test my loyalty? Would they do something to me purely on the suspicion that I’d become a turncoat? But I'd never seen her before, and I'd met many of Iova's people in the passing.

Damn, damn, and double damn.

Paralysed by my doubts, I did nothing. A week went by, putting distance between me and my encounter, and I found myself collaborating with an older elven man, Timon. He was a carpenter by trade who allowed our resistance to store supplies in his workshop down by the docks. He needed me to help fill small sachets with a greenish-black powder. It was time-consuming work, because the powder was highly volatile.

Or so he said.

Iova had assured him I would not fuck this up.

He warned me that even jostling the container too much might result in the entire block exploding, never mind our little workshop. I wanted to curse Iova, because this was her not-so-subtle jab at my failure at the palace.

“What’s this for?” I asked Timon, while we hunched over the worktable.

He peered at me, one fine brow arched. “It’s a surprise.”

“But what is it?”

“Ever heard of gaatlok?”

I shook my head.

“Our friends the Qunari left a little something behind recently. We intercepted it, and now we’re putting it to better use than they did.”

I didn’t need to ask when and where. In less than a week’s time a special ceremony was going to be held at the chantry – the young prince’s first birthday. The Divine herself was going to bless him. Oh no. I swallowed back the sudden sourness that furred my tongue.

“There are many guards there,” I said, focusing on my work and doing my best to stop my fingers from trembling.

“There are ways that are less obvious to set our little surprise,” Timon said with a smirk.

“But surely there will be retaliation?”

“Only if they catch us, which they won’t. Iova is right. You’ve lost your nerve, haven’t you?”

I shook my head. What had they been saying about me behind my back? “No. I’m just beginning to wonder where this will all end if we keep escalating.”

“You really have had it easy, haven’t you? You’ve never truly suffered.”

“You don’t know my story,” I shot back. “You’ve no right to make assumptions as to what lies in my past.” The anger that flared in my stomach was bright and hot.

He cackled. “And you don’t know mine. I had a wife and two daughters, you realise? Slavers took ’em. Right under the city guard noses. I went to make a complaint. Hells, I even got some of the lads from the alienage together and we went tried to go after them.’Cept the shems caught us. Took our weapons and beat us for good measure. Wouldn’t even listen to our side of the story. Said we were insurgents. I only escaped hanging because Iova’s people sprung us. Never saw my wife and kids again. By the time I was out, the slavers’ trail was long cold.”

I wet my lips and swallowed. “I hear you, and I am sorry for what you went through, but if we… Won’t this just make them come down harder on us? Where will it end? Look at how the mages and templars went at each other. Things just got worse and worse, and probably would have carried on getting worse if it hadn’t been for what the Inquisitor did.”

“And look what happened after,” Timon spat. “As much as things have changed, things are still the same. It’s never going to change while the Shems are still in power.”

“They broke down the alienage walls.”

“Fat lot of good that’s doing us. Those walls are still there in people’s minds, and that’s where it matters most.” He tapped the side of his head for emphasis.

I didn’t have an answer for that. Instead I looked down and carried on with the delicate work he had me do. One false move and _BOOM_! Maybe that was preferable to the horrible, gnawing terror that was creeping up from my belly. A sudden blinding flash and then what? Nothingness? I couldn’t imagine a Maker who’d welcome me into His embrace. I didn’t even know if I believed in Him or even the Creators my father did.

What could I do to stop all this awfulness from continuing? I was just one person. One small cog in this catastrophe that was playing itself out. And it would be a great disaster, like the time that apostate blew up the Chantry in Kirkwall. Only now it would involve the elves too. More blood; more war.

But the Inquisitor had just been one person, one _elf_ , right? One of the people who’d found herself thrust into the world of the shemlen. And look what she’d achieved. A _Dalish_ elf, of all people. Unused to the ways of the cities and nations. Could I, _dare_ I, make a difference? And the Red Jennys? Surely they had a better plan than what Iova and her rebellion was on about? They could use me, right? I could be a part of something that could make a tangible difference.

Only I’d turn traitor.

My own people.

I knew where to find the Red Jennys.

That inn where I’d taken Ilvin. The actual erstwhile Inquisitor. Had I known it was she back then… Would I have acted any differently? I didn’t know, couldn’t tell. No matter how I reframed that fateful night in the royal palace, I could not see myself placing that explosive rune. That little shemlen baby lived and bled just like any of the rest of us. Except he hadn’t had a chance to turn out good or bad, and I had to agree that all of us had some of good and bad in us. All of us deserved a chance, didn’t we? To make things right. _Better_ , if we had the opportunity to.

Timon and I spoke no more about the end results of our task. I merely filled the smaller clay bottles: scores of them. These were packed tight in crates lined with old rags. Timon took up the delicate task of affixing the fancy stoppers with the connected wires. There were at least a dozen crates. Even if a half were intercepted, I was certain there’d still be more than enough to do the job if they were placed strategically.

I tried to act calm, as if none of this bothered me, but I couldn’t help my hand shaking, my breath too quick. I prayed Timon didn’t look askance at me, but he was absorbed in his work. All the while I wondered and planned. Should I go home to the tenement first, get changed, or should I go direct to the Jennys? In the end, I figured this couldn’t wait, though as if sensing my impatience, Timon kept giving me task after task, so that I was working way past the time I usually would.

“In a hurry to go somewhere?” he asked archly.

I swallowed, shook my head and glanced out the tiny slots of windows. Dark outside.

“The way Iova says it, you’re all for just moping in that apartment. You should get out some more.” His smile was anything but warm.

“I’ve not really been in the right mood to out.”

He snickered. I carried on sweeping and tried to keep my face a mask of calm. My palms were moist on the broom handle.

I had no idea how late or early it was by the time Timon decided that I could knock off. A fine mist had settled over Denerim, instantly dampening my cloak when I pulled up the hood. The lanterns at shop fronts and within buildings gained a hazy golden glow as I hurried along. For some reason, I felt as if there were eyes on my back, but when I turned to look, I saw only a few other souls who were, like me, scurrying their way to wherever would be out of the miserable weather.

As luck would have it, the inn where I’d brought Ilvin was not far from where Timon had his workshop. I had two options: take a shortcut through an area I knew would be utterly deserted this time of night or follow the main thoroughfare and be seen doing so. I reached the point of no return at an intersection outside a noisy tavern, where raucous laughter and shrill singing tumbled out of the open door.

By that stage, my stomach was close to braiding itself into a rope, never mind mere knots. I clenched the fabric of my cloak in sweaty palms. A vision of that little boy, asleep in his crib, replayed itself endlessly in my memory. Then, Denil, and others like him. Like _me_. Caught in this war that would continue escalating. The little people, the faceless and nameless victims remembered only as the ‘thousands who died’ when some scholar got down to writing their annals of these troubled times.

Was Denerim going to become yet another Kirkwall? What if I could stop it? Could I live with myself if I didn’t at least try? My fate grew dark and heavy, flooding me with an inescapable sense of doom. Death, which seemed something distant, that happened to other people, placed its cold, clammy hand on my shoulder and whispered in my ear. My breath grew short, my vision hazy. No matter what I did, I would die. Perhaps not tomorrow, or the next. But I would, and most likely caught up in Iova’s schemes as they grew ever more incendiary.

I opted for the quieter route, where I was less likely to run into guards or worse, and slipped like a shadow, keeping to the sides of buildings and pausing often at the mouths of alleys, listening. The misty drizzle had grown more insistent, spurred on by fierce gusts of wind that brought with them biting cold. Every now and then, a dog would bark off in the distance, and I’d freeze, straining my senses. Was that disturbance to my left water dripping from the eaves of that building or was someone following me, watching, waiting to pounce?

I hurried on, shuddering as rats the size of cats skittered across my feet.

I was near one of the dwarven merchants’ warehouses, hiding in the entrance of the delivery area, when they found me. Two cloaked figures oozed out of the shadow to hem me in.

I grasped the pommel of my dagger, even as dismay bloomed in my guts. “Leave me alone,” I rasped out.

“ _Tsk_. Now, now, my dear, we’re concerned citizens. And you really are far from home.”

Through the gloom I could just make out the features of Meer, an elf I’d encountered a few times in my work. And there was no mistaking the slight Free Marches shadow in his accent. Which meant the slightly shorter, silent one to his right was Adren. They were Iova’s enforcers.

 _Well, shit_.

“There’s nothing to be concerned about.” I made to move, but they didn’t budge.

“Hands where we can see them,” Meer said.

“What, are you scared of one lone woman on her…own?” I tried to project false bravado into my voice, but I hated the way my words faltered.

They wouldn’t let me leave the alley alive.

I didn’t want to die.

Not yet. Not like this

The horror of my situation came crashing down, and I barrelled between the two, one of whom gave a surprised grunt as my elbow caught him in his gut. The cobbles were slick under the soles of my shoes. Someone grabbed my cloak, and I skidded, nearly coming down hard. But I discarded the garment and _ran_. Shouts rang out behind me, echoing off the walls, but I did not look back.

_Don’t ever look back._

The world jerked in oily slicks of light reflecting off puddles as I pelted down alleys and took unexpected turns in an attempt to put distance between me and my pursuers. My lungs were aflame, and each gasping breath made me feel as though an invisible tormentor was tightening an iron band around my chest.

And then I was racing across one of the main roads and into the dockside district where the inn was that I’d taken Ilvin. I slowed to a shambling trot then, my side aflame with a painful stitch, perspiration cooling on my overheated skin as I wended my way between the scatterings of folks still about in this street after dark. Taverns were busy, despite the recent troubles, spilling their light and music onto the street as if a war weren’t brewing in the shadows. Guess regular folks needed to forget, to pretend.

Startled shem exclaimed as I shoved past them, and I supposed I must look a fright with my hair in disarray and my clothing as dishevelled as it was. Cool air on my side, where my dress was torn. I didn’t remember that happening and clutched at the fabric for some sense of modesty.

“You all right, luv?” the driver of a delivery wagon called to me as I passed him by

I didn’t dignify his query with a response.

Stupid shem. If only he knew.

I rounded a corner and glimpsed flame-red tresses, caught in a bandana.

In that instant I froze.

Iova.

She was seated on a low wall, half in the shadow, but it was as if my entire being was honed to find her no matter where we were, no matter the circumstances. Iova hadn’t seen me yet; she was examining a note clasped loosely in one pale hand. My heart ached. Lies, it was all lies. Everything we’d had. And the worst was that I still wished there was something I could do to make her notice me, to smile the way she used to.

The other problem was that I’d have to pass her if I wanted to reach the inn, unless of course I wanted to loop around the block and possibly run into Meer and his friend again.

 _Fenhedis_.

With trembling hands, I kept my head down, and began to walk. As if I had all the reason in the world to be there. No hurry. There was a human girl selling matchsticks, and I placed her between me and the rest of the street. Though I ached to cut a glance to where Iova was seated, I kept going, matching my pace to a pair of shem youths who were staggering along while belting out a particularly off-key rendition of ‘Empress of Fire’. Then I had a stallholder hawking pies between me and where Iova sat, and allowed myself to breathe.

Sweat trickled down my brow and my nape, and I scurried the rest of the way. Only another two blocks.

My need to look overwhelmed me, so I turned, and cursed immediately that I had, for Iova was no longer seated on the wall.

Where was she? I cast about, my breath short, but all I saw was shemlen, their mouths open wide in laughter. Their eyes that glazed over when they saw me and focused somewhere else.

That was when I broke and started running again, heedless of the bodies that surged against me as a group of revellers bumbled across my path. Someone’s cloak pin stuck my shoulder in the scuffle, but I broke free, and ran the rest of the way down the block.

Colours became brighter, sounds elongating and stretching so that they boomed or grew echoing and tinny. What was happening to me? I fetched up against a wall, the crumbling brick gritty under my fingers. The pain in my shoulder was growing worse, hotter, like a wasp sting, and it felt as if an iron band squeezed my chest. With a faltering hand, I explored my shoulder, and pulled away a small dart.

I had seen one of these before, hadn’t I? That night that Iova had dealt with the Qunari out near the docks. Even as I stupidly studied the dart, its outline shimmered as though with a heat haze, haloing reds, greens and blues before snapping briefly into sharp focus.

My legs buckled but I lurched away from the wall and managed a shuffle-stumble the few feet towards my destination. So close. The ground rushed up to meet me, but where my fevered skin came into contact with the sludgy cobbles, I was met with pleasant coolness. Surely I could lie here a bit, gather myself…

No.

Bitter bile rose in my throat as I shoved myself up onto hands and knees.

Concerned voices came at me as though from a distance as I crawled on my hands and knees until I reached the stairs that led up to the inn’s entrance. My world dimmed at its edges, my throat thick as I scratched pathetically at the door.

I had failed, hadn’t I? Just a little person caught up in other people’s games. No one would sing songs about me or speak my name. Even though I had the words that had the power to prevent a calamity.

Even as I lost the ability to hold up my head, the door crept open and I stared into scuffed sabatons. The next I knew, strong hands raised me, someone calling for a healer. My head lolled to the side and I found my gaze captured by the feral topaz stare of the strange elf who’d interrupted Iova’s warehouse meeting that day.

“Huh, arghhh,” was all I managed before I slipped into darkness.


	13. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You didn't think I'd leave you there, in the darkness, did you?

“Hey, you.” The voice sounded as though from a great distance, and I struggled to shrug aside the tatters of oblivion that held me fast.

A warm hand squeezed mine, anchoring me to the present, to the sense of heaviness offered by flesh.

I dared to open my eyes, at first not sure when and where I was. The room was unfamiliar, dormer windows streaming with sunlight that haloed the blond elf who perched on the edge of my bed.

“I…” My tongue wouldn’t form words.

“You feel like shite, hey?” She offered me a mug filled with warm, herby liquid. Some sort of tea – I detected notes of elfroot.

I sipped some of the bitter liquid and nearly gagged.

“What. Happened?”

“Apart from you just about kicking it on our doorstep?” She cackled, clearly enjoying my discomfort.

Even the slightest nod brought about a thumping pain to my head. It was better if I moved as little as possible.

“You saved a whole buncha people, sweets. Put a spoke in the wheel of bitchy-bitchface, that’s what. So thanks in order, no? Her ladyship is most grateful.”

“Ilvin?” I sighed and closed my eyes.

“You gonna rest up, sweets. That was bad poison. Nearly got you, it did. Instant death for Qunari, but for us it’s more like a creeping death. If it wasn’t for Elfy shinypants, you wouldn’t have pulled through.”

I had no idea who she meant, but I was grateful to be warm, alive. And, dare I hope it, safe? Sleep was wriggling its fingers up my cheeks again and making my lids heavy, and I sighed deeply as I allowed the tea to do its thing.

“Sleep now, yeah. See you when you’re better. We gonna go upset some idiot arse cakes, right?”

The last I was aware of was the blond elf laying a cool hand on my forehead. Then sleep dragged me away and for the first time in a long time, I had dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks for joining me on this journey. It has taken me years to write Ria's story, but I'm glad I persevered. Back in 2014 I began a journey I had no idea would make me fall so irrevocably in love with Thedas and its many tales, and this is one that I've wanted to share for a long time, about the little people, the ones whose lives seem to slip between the cracks but who nonetheless play pivotal roles in a larger picture.
> 
> Creating fanfiction is a thankless task. My only reward is the kudos and comments when I know that my readers have connected with my telling. However I do ask this small favour: If you've loved this story, do consider supporting my original fiction. I have a wide range of tales in the fantasy genre available on Amazon, some of which are available on KU as well. https://www.amazon.com/Nerine-Dorman/e/B004QXPOFS


End file.
